A scam or the best option? A cool build-up and a calm finish!

- Fraud is repaid with fraud.
- If you and I join hands, we are no longer weak.

- A New York Times bestseller! Amazon Book of the Year!

Julie Clarke made her debut in 2018 with The Ones We Choose.
He emerged as a notable author when his 2020 book, Last Flight, was listed on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists.
The 2022 work, Two of Us, also attracted attention as it was selected as a New York Times bestseller and Amazon Book of the Year.
In 2023, he published a collection of short stories, The Heart of a Mother.


Two of Us, selected as Amazon's Best Book of the Year in 2022, can be classified as a thriller, but it is also a novel that searches for solutions or self-help measures when innocent women suffer violence simply because they are socially disadvantaged.
The narrators of "Two of Us" are two women, Meg and Kat.
They have one thing in common: they have suffered greatly from men with money and power and have had a hard time for a long time.


Meg, who lived alone with her mother, faced difficult challenges during her childhood.
Her mother, Rosie, was scammed out of her home and then died after being diagnosed with terminal cancer.
Meg, whose mother was her only family member, is forced to live in a minivan with no one to rely on.
A life of poverty continues, where you have to go on dating websites to seduce men just to buy a meal, and at night, you have to park your car on the side of the road and sleep.
Meg decides she can't go on living like this and vows revenge on Ron Ashton for deceiving her mother and taking her home.

Ron Ashton is too big a deal for Meg to handle, so there's no immediate solution.
Lacking experience and skills, Meg wanders around various cities across America, approaching villains who bully the weak and destroying them with ingenious tricks, building a career that will rival Ron Ashton's.
The villains who were attacked by Meg lost all their wealth and suffered a fatal blow to their reputations.
Meg has been building up her success over the past decade, using aliases and falsifying her resume, and she is fully prepared to destroy Ron Ashton.


Meanwhile, Kat, a trainee reporter at the LA Times, is covering the case of Cory Dempsey, a high school principal who molested female students, when she receives a call from an informant and goes to meet with the witness, only to be sexually assaulted.
The informant was Meg, and Kat believes she was sexually assaulted when she went to meet the witness without warning.
Cat hates Meg more than Nate, who committed the sexual assault.
For the past decade, Cat has been secretly following Meg, determined to expose her fraudulent activities in a scoop.


Meg begins to formulate a plan to destroy Ron Ashton.
Real estate developer Ron Ashton is accumulating wealth and power by the day, while also raising funds for his upcoming state Senate run.
After wandering around various cities, gaining practical experience, and building up her perfect build, Meg returns to Los Angeles to take down Ron Ashton.
For the past decade, Meg has taken to heart what Ron Ashton said to her mother.

'In the battlefield of life, there are always winners and losers.
In this war, you have been decided as the loser.
'Next time you'll have to be a little smarter if you want to win without losing.' Meg had been trying to be smarter for the past ten years, just like Ron said, and she had the perfect plan to corner him.

Ron Ashton was looking at my face intently.
The person who drove my mother to despair and made me live in a minivan since my senior year of high school was smiling leisurely right before my eyes.

I smiled at him and offered a handshake.
“The star of the night has finally appeared.
“This is Meg Williams.” It was the moment when I stood before Ron again as ‘Meg.’
A shiver ran down my spine.
The hours I spent imagining this moment flashed through my mind.

I was a little worried that Ron might see traces of his mother in my face or in my last name, 'Williams.'
If he recognizes me, should I pretend to be happy to see him again, play the innocent, naive, and even make a joke? Tell him I've forgotten all about the past, that I was too young to remember anything.

Fortunately, Ron's face held no suspicion, and I was given the opportunity to hide behind a mask of anonymity.
Ron had a strong grip.
I slightly tightened my grip on the hand I was holding, then let go.
Curiosity flashed in his eyes as he sensed my small provocation.
I wanted him to remember this moment forever.
In the distant future, when he imagines this moment, he will ask himself whether it was inevitable that he met me or whether it could have been avoided.
Hoping the answer to his question is 'could have been avoided'.
--- pp.21-22

Among the kids, I was known as the 'shopping bag girl'.
Because I didn't have money to buy a bag, I carried my textbooks in a shopping bag.
Christine was the only kid who didn't tease me and took my side.
One day, when the kids were teasing me by calling me "Shopping Bag Girl," Christine snapped at Kobe Maxson, who was the loudest.
“Kobe, you were picking your nose so badly in chemistry class last week?”
Thanks to Christine, I managed to escape from that place.
My gratitude towards Christine is still deeply engraved in my heart.
When I was alone with Christine in the bathroom, I asked her something I'd always wondered about.
“All the other kids make fun of me, so why are you nice to me?”
My shoulder, which was washing my hands at the sink, slightly bumped into Christine's shoulder, which was applying lip gloss.
Christine met my eyes and answered my question.
“It’s a girl code.
You and I can be stronger together.
“It means that if we join forces, there is nothing to fear.”
--- pp.32-33

Corey asked with a smile.
“Where is your hometown?”
“I was born and raised in Grass Valley, a small town in the Sierra Nevada.
It was a small town with a population of about 12,000, so most people knew each other.
“I left Grass Valley after my mother died of cancer.” I searched Corey’s face to see if he suspected me, but instead I found a look of trust in his eyes.
“How did you end up in Los Angeles?”
“I followed my boyfriend, but as soon as we arrived in Los Angeles, we discovered our differences and decided to go our separate ways.” I said, as if my breakup with my boyfriend was sad but I was coping well.
“The pain of separation was great, but I never regret coming to Los Angeles.
I'm studying digital design at Santa Monica City College.
I'm currently living in a dorm, but I plan on finding a place to live after I graduate.
“My dream is to start a design company someday.”
Corey looked into my eyes and asked.
“Do you believe in fate?”
Opportunities must be created by oneself.
However, if someone was harmed because of the opportunity I took, there had to be a just cause.
Life is about cause and effect.
“That’s it at this moment.”
Corey leaned down and kissed me.
His wrinkles around his eyes and his white hair were right before my eyes.
Corey whispered.
“When will we be able to meet again?”
--- pp.60-61

I dozed off for a bit and when I opened my eyes, I was in a room I had never seen before.
Sunlight streamed in through the gaps in the blinds on the window, and I saw Nate sleeping next to me.
My head was spinning and the ceiling was spinning.
I had no memory of how I got here.
The top was wearing a t-shirt, and the bottom was naked.
"no!"
Suddenly I felt sick, so I ran to the bathroom, buried my face in the toilet, and retched for a long time.
A disgusting smell of alcohol vibrated in the air.
After washing my face with cold water, I looked at myself in the mirror and saw that my makeup was badly smudged.
I concentrated my mind to recall yesterday's memories.
I had just had a few sips of whiskey and a beer at 2pm and woke up in Nate's room the next morning.
I remember leaving the bar for a moment to answer Frank's phone, but I don't remember anything after that.
When I returned to my room, Nate was sitting on the bed.
He asked me with a smile.
“How are you feeling? Are you feeling better now?”
A harsh, metallic sound came out of my mouth.
“What have you done to me?”
--- pp.128-129

I held the phone to my ear and pretended to be talking to someone while looking through the window.
I saw someone walk through the living room and disappear out of sight.
If I knock on the front door, will Ron come out?
I hadn't seen Ron since I last saw him in my teens.
The glasses I was wearing were replaced with contact lenses, and my brown hair turned blonde.
At that moment, Ron opened the front door, came out, and got into the car.
As he started the car and pulled out of the driveway, I turned my head and pretended to keep talking to someone.
Hatred for Ron was seething.
While I was living like a homeless person, sleeping in my minivan after losing my mother, Ron was living a peaceful and comfortable life in our house, which he had taken from his mother by deceiving her.
--- p.155

Meg, dressed in a black suit and pink silk top, entered the conference room.
The pointed toes of her high heels were slightly sticking out of her long pants, and her hair was styled in a bun.
It was a completely different picture from the one I saw in the Northside High School yearbook a long time ago.
Meg sat down in the leather chair across from me and said:
“These properties have been on the market for at least six months.
So don't be scared by the high price.
“There is room for compromise on price.”
I pretended to carefully review the housing information, flipping through the documents one by one, but in reality, I was so conscious of Meg's gaze that nothing entered my mind.
Meg called the LA Times 10 years ago and we spoke, and her tip led me to Nate and we met.
Meg didn't give Nate any clues about who he was.
The memory of that day still remained as an unhealed wound.
I said, covering the papers.
“Then shall we go and see the property?”
Meg smiled brightly and accepted my words.
“Let’s go in my car.”
--- p.180

Now Ron was within my sphere of influence.
I have been waiting for this day to come for a long time.
Ron tricked my mother into taking our house, and filled my teenage years with despair and sadness.
From now on, I was determined to stay close to Ron and win his heart by any means necessary.
I was going to smile at him if he liked him, crack a joke when we talked, applaud him if he showed great business sense, and praise him if he showed intelligence.
My primary goal was to live up to Ron's wishes and gain his trust.
I was determined to use my experience of bringing down Corey to give my all on the stage given to me again and drive Ron into the abyss of destruction.

I was focused on finding out Ron's working methods, habits, and blind spots.
Ron was a man with money and power, and my goals were simple and clear.
It's about taking away the money and power that he values ​​most.
It's about getting Canyon Drive back, which was our original home.

--- p.199