Lo’s return to St. Medard’s Bay to co-author a memoir serves as the inciting incident that forces the past into the present. Lo is a master of narrative control, a skill she has honed over a lifetime of being defined by stories told by others. She is introduced through a series of documents, from tabloid headlines to excerpts of her own manuscript, and this approach establishes her as a figure whose identity is constantly under construction. 

Her narrative voice is charismatic, brash, and candid, and she frames her younger self as a guileless teenager who was unfairly targeted by a powerful man and a misogynistic public. As she acts to reclaim her story in the present-day narrative, she engages with The Unreliability of Personal and Public Histories. Beneath her carefully crafted persona of the wronged-but-resilient woman, Lo is a pragmatic survivor. Having spent decades moving between low-wage jobs, she is “a little down on [her] luck” and initially views the memoir as a purely financial transaction (9). Her actions are consistently driven by a sharp-edged instinct for self-preservation, which she learned from her mother, Beth-Anne Bailey. This pattern culminates in her confession to August, which is a calculated performance designed to protect Geneva as she falsely claims full responsibility for a crime that was committed collaboratively. 

Lo’s morality is complex and situational, and she is guided by a fierce but selective form of loyalty. Her participation in Landon Fitzroy’s murder is depicted as a desperate act to protect a pregnant and vulnerable Ellen, and for 40 years, she has allowed the world to believe that she is a potential murderer to shield her friend. Her journey is one of evolution; shedding the self-focused survival that defined her youth, she later takes a protective, almost maternal stance toward Geneva, the daughter of the friend she once sought to protect. In the end, she helps to create a new secret, perpetuating a cycle of lies in order to preserve the hard-won solidarity between the three surviving “witches” of St. Medard’s Bay.

August is the novel’s eventual antagonist and an unreliable narrator whose motivations are concealed behind a professional façade. He enters the story as an objective journalist, a ghostwriter offering Lo a chance to tell her story. His initial emails are carefully manipulative and filled with flattery that is designed to help him earn her trust and gain access to her life. When he tells Lo, “There’s value in you” (11), he positions himself as her champion, but in reality, his goal is to create a vengeful exposé. His quest for the truth is a personal one, driven by the discovery that he is Landon Fitzroy’s son. This revelation makes him obsessed with the past, and he seeks retribution against Lo, the woman whom he believes murdered his father and robbed him of his birthright. 

His pursuit illustrates The Destructive Power of Generational Secrets, as his attempt to uncover the past unleashes new violence upon the present. Like his father, August operates with a deep-seated and dangerous sense of entitlement. He believes that he has a right to his family’s history and to a legacy that he feels was stolen from him. This sense of being wronged fuels his actions, and he callously disregards the nuances of the situation and the basic humanity of the people involved. 

As the novel progresses, his obsession devolves into volatility and violence, and he attacks Edie in an attempt further implicate Lo and remove a witness who contradicts his preferred narrative. During the climax, his grief and rage explode when he is confronted with the truth of Landon’s death, and he attacks Lo, intending to kill her. When he tells Geneva, “We could’ve been a family, but she took that from us” (233), his declaration reveals the depths of his willful self-deception. In the end, his inability to accept a truth that doesn’t align with his narrative of victimhood leads directly to his own violent death, and he becomes the final victim of the secrets he sought to uncover.

Edie, formerly Frieda, exhibits many of the signs of unresolved trauma. For decades, she has lived under an assumed name, attempting to escape the tragedy of Hurricane Audrey, which killed her family. She also carries a deep-seated resentment toward Lo, whose youthful recklessness she blames for her family’s death. This long-held animosity motivated her to testify against Lo at Landon’s murder trial, an act of retribution that she justified by seeing it as a way of protecting Ellen from Lo’s corrupting influence. 

Her return to St. Medard’s is an unconscious attempt to confront the past she cannot escape, and her gruff, guarded demeanor shields her from the pain of being “sad little Frieda Mason” (135). Despite her hardened exterior, Edie exhibits a steadfast protectiveness, which she has transferred from Ellen to Geneva. She functions as Geneva’s surrogate family and her closest confidante, and she becomes a staunch defender of both Geneva and the Rosalie Inn. This protective instinct leads her to confront August after discovering the vengeful nature of his book, and her bravery incites him to cause her near-fatal injury. Ultimately, August’s attack compels her to interact with Lo to re-examine her long-held beliefs. Her final confession to Lo and Geneva reveals the last piece of the historical puzzle: that she was also present on the night of Landon’s death and moved his body to protect Ellen. This admission allows her to shed the weight of her resentment and guilt, and she forges a new, honest bond with Lo and Geneva, completing the circle of the three “witches” of St. Medard’s Bay.

Although her presence in the novel is filtered through the fog of Alzheimer’s disease, Ellen is the narrative’s central mystery. Her past actions and the secrets she kept for 40 years are the source of the story’s primary conflict. Characterized in her youth as the “Nice One,” Ellen is revealed to have been a woman of deep complexity and strength. She harbored a deep, secret love for Landon Fitzroy, which resulted in an affair and a pregnancy that she concealed from everyone, including her closest friends. When she decided to keep Geneva’s parentage a secret and marry the kind, stable Tim Corliss, these pragmatic choices were designed to protect her daughter from the scandal and the widespread influence of the Fitzroy family. 

Her secret collection of newspaper clippings and the “L” bracelet from Landon are the evidence of a past that she could never fully bury, and this hidden history makes her the quiet epicenter of The Destructive Power of Generational Secrets. The novel recasts her defining moment not as one of weakness but as one of fierce, protective strength. When Landon became violent toward Lo, it was the quiet Ellen who struck the first blow with the anchor, an act of primal defense for her friend. This revelation forces a reinterpretation of her character, as beneath her gentle exterior lay a core of loyalty and a capacity for morally ambiguous action that was equal to Lo’s.

Landon exists as a posthumous figure, a charismatic but deeply flawed man whose presence in the novel is constructed entirely from the biased memories of others. To Lo, he is a grand, romantic love; to August, he is a murdered father and a stolen legacy; and to Ellen, he is a secret passion that led to tragedy. He is remembered as exceptionally charming, a quality that is evident in his letters to both Lo and Ellen. This magnetism, however, masked an intense selfishness and entitlement that is implied to be symptomatic of his Fitzroy lineage. He was serially unfaithful and chafed against the political destiny that his father had planned for him, using his affairs as a form of rebellion. 

During his life, he used his charm to get what he wanted, and his behavior took a sharp turn into cruelty when his desires were thwarted. His plan to have Ellen hide her pregnancy and then allow him and his wife to adopt the child reveals his narcissism and utter lack of empathy. Rejecting his cruelty, Ellen and Lo defied him on the porch of the inn, and his frustration exploded into physical violence. This act of entitled rage precipitated his murder, making him an active participant in his own demise.