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Skipping a Beat: A Novel
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Julia and Michael meet in high school in their small, poverty-stricken West Virginia hometown. Both products of difficult childhoods--Julia’s father is a compulsive gambler and Michael’s mother abandoned his family when he was a young boy--they find a sense of safety and mutual understanding in each other. Shortly after graduation they flee West Virginia to start afresh.
Now thirty-somethings, they are living a rarified life in their multi-million-dollar, Washington D.C. home. From the outside it all looks perfect--Julia has become a highly sought-after party planner, while Michael has launched a wildly successful flavored water company that he sold for $70 million.
But one day Michael stands up at the head of the table in his company's boardroom--then silently crashes to the floor. More than four minutes later, a portable defibrillator manages to jump-start his heart. Yet what happened to Michael during those lost minutes forever changes him. Money is meaningless to him now - and he wants to give it all away to charity.
A prenuptial agreement that Julia insisted upon back when Michael's company was still struggling means she has no claim to his fortune, and now she must decide: should she walk away from the man she once adored, but who truthfully became a stranger to her long before his near-death experience--or should she give in to her husband's pleas for a second chance and a promise of a poorer but happier life
Book Actions
Start ReadingBook Information
Skipping a Beat: A Novel
Description
Julia and Michael meet in high school in their small, poverty-stricken West Virginia hometown. Both products of difficult childhoods--Julia’s father is a compulsive gambler and Michael’s mother abandoned his family when he was a young boy--they find a sense of safety and mutual understanding in each other. Shortly after graduation they flee West Virginia to start afresh.
Now thirty-somethings, they are living a rarified life in their multi-million-dollar, Washington D.C. home. From the outside it all looks perfect--Julia has become a highly sought-after party planner, while Michael has launched a wildly successful flavored water company that he sold for $70 million.
But one day Michael stands up at the head of the table in his company's boardroom--then silently crashes to the floor. More than four minutes later, a portable defibrillator manages to jump-start his heart. Yet what happened to Michael during those lost minutes forever changes him. Money is meaningless to him now - and he wants to give it all away to charity.
A prenuptial agreement that Julia insisted upon back when Michael's company was still struggling means she has no claim to his fortune, and now she must decide: should she walk away from the man she once adored, but who truthfully became a stranger to her long before his near-death experience--or should she give in to her husband's pleas for a second chance and a promise of a poorer but happier life
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Reviews
such a great, grip your seat story. I really enjoyed it from start to finish. glad it ended with a finality so I wasn't left wondering what happens now. great read!
Rating: 5Still reeling from the powerful ending to this beautiful book. I usually write longer reviews, but I need to go hug my family right now.
Rating: 5
Very sappy with unrealistic characters and plot line. Very boring. Would not recommend.
Rating: 2
After meeting the author and discussing the book at book club at One More Page bookstore, I can now say I love this author and this book even more. A story set near my home with two characters that throughout the book, I both loved and hated. Julia, a woman who grew up in a volatile household and was always trying to ensure that her future was better than her past. Michael, a hardworking guy who as time has passed spends more time at his office than at his home. Their communication was basically absent and their relationship was more like roommates than lovers.
I adored this story and I will absolutely refrain from spoiling such a good ending - so this may be short and sweet. At this time in my life this was a perfect read as I have recently grown accustomed to the boy being away and I have learned to fill the time with more of the hobbies that I enjoy. When our journey ends which is soon, I will have to relearn how our lives mesh and we will be able to restablish our relationship. As Julia has done, I have learned to lean on a close friend for companionship during the week (and the pup of course) I understood Julia's struggle to try to understand how to be back in a relationship and learn to trust her feelings with him.
I can't say more because I loved this book and I want everyone to go find it and read away. The writing was easy for a day at the pool or curled up indoors. It was definitely one where you sit down to read and then hours just easily pass by. A great reflection on the relationship we have and the value we must hold in building and nuturing each relationship from friends to husbands to family.
Rating: 5I adored this story and I will absolutely refrain from spoiling such a good ending - so this may be short and sweet. At this time in my life this was a perfect read as I have recently grown accustomed to the boy being away and I have learned to fill the time with more of the hobbies that I enjoy. When our journey ends which is soon, I will have to relearn how our lives mesh and we will be able to restablish our relationship. As Julia has done, I have learned to lean on a close friend for companionship during the week (and the pup of course) I understood Julia's struggle to try to understand how to be back in a relationship and learn to trust her feelings with him.
I can't say more because I loved this book and I want everyone to go find it and read away. The writing was easy for a day at the pool or curled up indoors. It was definitely one where you sit down to read and then hours just easily pass by. A great reflection on the relationship we have and the value we must hold in building and nuturing each relationship from friends to husbands to family.
One of the few books that made me cry HARD.
Rating: 5While this book started somewhat slow for me, by the end, I was reading it everywhere my iPad went. The story revolves around a married couple who met in high school. They went from being Mike and Julie to Michael and Julia, and went from young people barely scraping by to multimillionaires. They also went from being each other's everything to sharing a household on occasion due to busy schedules and separate lives.
Michael suffers a cardiac arrest, and dies "for the first time" at the beginning of the story while being in a board room meeting (a typical place for him as we quickly find out). He then goes on to do a complete about face and give away his entire company to charity, worth about $70 million.
Julia, at this point in the story, is becoming a spoiled brat to no end. She drove me nuts, wondering if she could deal with a different way of life, and just being constantly drama ridden. My irritation was perhaps amplified, because at this time, Michael was being super sweet and loving - Julia just wouldn't listen.
Some of my favorite characters were the secondary ones. Julia's friend Isabella is a kick and a half - super rich, but yet so approachable and down to earth. Noah, the young boy that is met when Julia goes out walking, however, is precious. He is curious and brilliant, and I loved the riddle that got me thinking in the middle of a book.
Of course, this is a love story, and while it's not really EXACTLY what you want, it is a feel-good story that ends exactly the way things were meant to be.
Rating: 3Michael suffers a cardiac arrest, and dies "for the first time" at the beginning of the story while being in a board room meeting (a typical place for him as we quickly find out). He then goes on to do a complete about face and give away his entire company to charity, worth about $70 million.
Julia, at this point in the story, is becoming a spoiled brat to no end. She drove me nuts, wondering if she could deal with a different way of life, and just being constantly drama ridden. My irritation was perhaps amplified, because at this time, Michael was being super sweet and loving - Julia just wouldn't listen.
Some of my favorite characters were the secondary ones. Julia's friend Isabella is a kick and a half - super rich, but yet so approachable and down to earth. Noah, the young boy that is met when Julia goes out walking, however, is precious. He is curious and brilliant, and I loved the riddle that got me thinking in the middle of a book.
Of course, this is a love story, and while it's not really EXACTLY what you want, it is a feel-good story that ends exactly the way things were meant to be.
The jacket blurb says that this book has a unique premise, but the same day I was checking this one out from the library's new book shelf I looked at another, set in a small Southern town, with almost the same one: a wealthy man has a near-death experience, it changes the way he looks at life, and his wife has some trouble dealing with the changes. I picked this one and found it quite enjoyable. The story is told from the wife's point of view, with flashbacks and memories of how the two met, their early struggles, and how the marriage became a shell. The secondary characters are interesting and well-drawn, especially the protagonist's best friend Isabelle. Julia, the protagonist, is honest with herself and is not presented as the perfect woman. Recommended for the woman who wants a quick emotional read with some humor attached.
Rating: 3The premise of this book intrigued me. Would it be that easy to give up so much material wealth for a marriage that wasn't that great in the first place? The author did a good job of setting up Julia's back-story so that we understand why financial security is even more important to her than most people. However, I still had a hard time feeling sorry for her because I found her to be so selfish. Her relationship with Michael baffled me; their marriage seemed to deteriorate so quickly after Michael's company took off and their lack of communication after that was astounding. If I were Julia, there were some things that I could not have kept my mouth shut about. I really liked Julia's friend Isabelle. I would love to see a spin-off book with her as the main character.I chose this book for my book club's June read based on the great reviews it got around the blogosphere when it was first published. After reading it, I feel like my book club friends and I may be cold-hearted snakes because none of us liked it that much. That said, we still had a good, long conversation - mostly about the issues surrounding marriage that the book brings up.I felt lukewarm about this book - I never cared enough about the characters, especially Julia, that I felt like crying over them. A lot of other reviewers were crying buckets at the end so maybe that says more about me than this book! I did enjoy parts of this book and clearly a lot of other people out there have enjoyed it wholeheartedly so you may want to check out some other reviews besides mine.
Rating: 3I know this author has hordes of fans, but I avoided her books for a long time; I was afraid she just wrote very light “chick lit” stories. But since many of my favorite book blog reviewers just love her, I felt obliged to take a chance. As usual, my faith in their good taste was redeemed, as I was pleasantly surprised to find out this book was quite different from – and better than my expectations led me to believe.Julia is the 34-year old wife of Michael, who made $70 million with his flavored vitamin water start-up. Since then, they have been able to live in a $10 million home and indulge in a wealthy lifestyle. Julia has a good income from her own job too, as a successful party planner. On the surface all seems perfect, except that they never see each other anymore, and the couple, who met in West Virginia and became inseparable as poor kids with big dreams, are now in a sad Potemkin marriage living like virtual strangers.As the story begins, Michael has just collapsed on his boardroom floor with a heart attack, and is actually dead for four minutes and eight seconds before being revived with a defibrillator he presciently purchased for the workplace a few months earlier. When Michael awakens, he announces he is quitting his job, giving away all his money, and intends to concentrate on making amends to everyone he “screwed over” in his climb to the top, including his wife.We know that their marriage has become a sham, but Julia’s reaction to Michael’s almost-death and personality rebirth is still shocking. She is cold, unsupportive, and upset with Michael for reneging on his promise to give her a good life. She is more worried about the continuation of her wealthy lifestyle than Michael’s health or their future as a couple. The more lovingly he acts toward her, the more resentment she feels toward him.Michael asks her to give him three weeks before she makes a decision whether to leave him, and at the urging of her best friend Isabelle, she reluctantly agrees. Much of the time though, she spends angry, and as she looks back on the events in their relationship that have led to this moment, we come to understand why Julia reacts the way she does, and why Michael turned into the man he became.Discussion: The permutations of marriages are as much the focus of this book as the evolution of the characters over time. As Julia thinks back on a group of women with whom she once discussed marriage, she recalls how most of them were less than satisfied. In one instance, the woman said she had wanted someone different from the man in a previous bad relationship, so she married her husband for who he wasn’t rather than who he was. Another wondered: “What if things aren’t terrible, but they aren’t great either? What if you’re not happy, but not terribly unhappy either?” Then there is the problem of conflicting expectations, not only between the two partners, but even within one of them. What if you want two opposite things out of life, and your partner can naturally only provide one of them? Or what if one of you changes your priorities, but the other doesn’t, as in the case of Julia and Michael?Part of the cause of these non-optimal marriages is a lack of communications, or too many miscommunications. This, too, was a problem for Julia and Michael. As they reevaluate their lives together, they discover that much of what they believed about each other was never true, because they never would discuss it. Even by the end of the story, when so much has changed, they are still each keeping their thoughts largely to themselves.At first, I didn’t like Julia at all, but I couldn’t believe Pekkanen would leave her so unlikable. I think she did a good job of letting us gradually understand the fears that drove Julia to act the way she did. Although I didn’t see Julia as entirely redeemed by the end of the book, she was definitely, and successfully, working on moving in a better direction.Evaluation: I thought this was a very good book. I hated that Pekkanen made me examine my own life and my own choices, but that’s what good books do. [And you ask why I prefer fairy tales and dystopias!!!] There are also definitely a number of Kleenexes involved in reading this book.
Rating: 4Brief Description: Julia and Michael grew up together in the same West Virginia town. Both faced childhoods that were difficult, but they saved each other and managed to escape their hardscrabble town and create a new life together in Washington, DC. Now in their thirties, they’ve achieved a level of success that Julia (whose constant worries about money growing up have followed her into adulthood) never imagined possible. Michael is the owner of a wildly successful company, while Julia owns her own party planning business. They live in a mansion, drive luxury cars and want for nothing. But Julia often finds herself alone as Michael is consumed by his work. His dedication to growing his company has devoured him, and their marriage has become a hollow shell. Then Michael has a heart attack and is declared clinically dead for several minutes. When he recovers, he is a changed man. Not only is he dead-set on giving away his massive fortune, he is also ready to focus on and love Julia again. But Julia is not quite ready to embrace these changes. She’s become a different person over the years and doesn’t feel what Michael feels. To her, he is destroying their lives and threatening her with her worst childhood fears. She thinks it unfair of Michael to ask so much of her when he gave her so little in the past. But Michael seems to be on a deadline of sorts, and she feels she owes him a bit of time to make his case.My Thoughts: Despite the glamourous trappings of wealth and the visions of the afterlife that Michael shares, this is really a novel about a marriage that evolved into something that neither party can fully understand and where it will go next. There has been betrayal, hurt and neglect on both sides, and when Michael abrubtly wants to find his way back to Julia, she’s not quite sure she wants him back. As they both struggle to make sense of what their marriage has become, Pekkanen explores what holds a marriage together and whether people can truly give up the love that brought them together in the first place. I thought Pekkanen created an interesting story and brought it to a close in a very satisfying and emotional way. However, I often found myself thinking that Julia was too focused on money, and I often found her unlikable. I think if Pekkanen had spent more time developing Julia’s hardscrabble childhood a bit more, it wouldn’t have read this way. Still, despite some flaws, Pekkanen creates an involving and emotional read.
Rating: 4I really enjoyed this book. When I first started it, I thought it was going to be self absorbed. It wasn't. I liked how she dealt with the main characters struggle of trying to figure out whether she still loved her husband or if she was just staying with him for the money and the security that it bought. I also liked how the author wrote about life and death without getting sappy or preachy.
Rating: 4The book opens with a near-death experience then begins to delves into the complex relationship that the husband and wife share and how their marriage began to fail as money was introduced into their life. They began to rediscover one another again once their fortune is taken out of the equation. I thought this would be a simple chick
Rating: 4Skipping a Beat included a very dynamic main character whose ever shifting perspective kept me on my toes. Early on in the novel, you don’t particularly like Julia.And although “early” Julia wasn’t my favorite, Pekkanen does a great job of creating empathy for her even when you can’t understand her reasoning. As a reader, Julia’s motives are suspect. Why would you stay with someone just for money? How can a house make up for love?Questions like these kept racing through my head in the beginning of the novel, but Pekkanen answered them slowly. And as I got a better sense of Julia’s past, her thoughts, and her wishes I grew to like her and her husband immensely.Without giving away the ending, I will let you know that Skipping a Beat left me teary eyed. Pekkanen created characters that I grew to love and wove a plot that I could see coming but that challenged me anyway.
Rating: 4Reviewer: StephanieSarah Pekkanen probes the intricacy and raw verity of affection and marriage in her new novel, as well as the power, and the greed, that envelopes the human conscience from within, ruining every last drop of happiness that one can maintain.The plot of Skipping a Beat is extremely original and intriguing. Julia's husband, Michael, is finally, after years of determination and self surrender, a part of the rich and respected social elite, thanks to his successful, multimillion-dollar health beverage company, DrinkUp. Julie and Mike can finally live the life they've always dreamed of from their poor slums of adolescence. Then one day, one seemingly perfect, normal day, Julia's life shatters when she discovers Michael entered cardiac arrest for four minutes and eight seconds. Her husband was dead for four minutes and eight seconds.His revival is nothing short of a miracle; after all, how many people get a second chance at life? Michael recognizes this a little too well, though -- once he's back in Julie's arms, he's intent on making his second time around focused on his love for his wife, not on his company, his life. I was a little disappointed at Julia's reaction at Michael's decision. You'd think a woman who nearly just lost her husband would be supportive of his afterlife crisis. You'd think the frustration she feels when learning her husband's company -- all the money he's worked hard for -- is going to charity, would dissipate after learning he was doing it all for her. But the largest, most stubborn conflict Julia experiences is ruling out whether or not she should leave Michael now that he no longer has his company. I found this incredibly selfish of Julia. Since she was raised by a gambling addict and never was able to live out the luxuries of life, I understand why Julia would be upset at first. But to drag it out during the entire length of the novel? That's a little shallow. Her outlook on Michael's abrupt, but still emotionally generous new purpose is: leave him and grab all the savings she can before they're all donated, or stay married and live a middle class life. Nearly dying gives Michael a new-found vision to his life; he apprehends that money isn't what matters. After you're gone, the one thing you'll regret most is not spending enough time with those you love, not what you could and couldn't purchase. Julia never seems to reach this discovery, which is when the reader realizes, maybe her marriage was doomed in the first place.The book flashes back to all of Julia's unhappy moments. The time when Michael missed their anniversary because he was on a business trip. The time when Michael promised to go with her to her favorite opera, but stood her up. The time when Julia found out about his affair, then went ahead to engage in one of her own. It is revealed that Julia and Michael's marriage isn't what it's hyped up to be, and that it was screwed up even before Michael's cardiac arrest.However, Michael is now a new person, one who doesn't care for the wealth or the power. And maybe, just maybe, this time, they can make it work out.The saddest part is, just when Julia deciphers this prominent message about true love and self renewal, she loses her chance to make it all better. Too deeply involved with her inner turmoils of concern over money, she loses the opportunity to start over again, in Skipping a Beat's unanticipated, provoking finish.I absolutely cannot believe how the book ended, and am so touched by Pekkanen's thoughtful, sempiternal story, that it has now ranked among my favorites.Along with an impactful, tragic, yet still hopeful story, Pekkanen writes with such grace and ease, that I couldn't put down the book once I started. Best of all, Julia's voice is fresh and witty; traits most characters fall flat in when attempting. I literally had laugh-out-loud moments reading Julia's observations, and really enjoy the way she portrays and compares everyday things in her life.Skipping a Beat's characters are highly flawed, its writing is straight from the heart, and its moral and plot are entirely path breaking. I lamented when I learned that wealth comes at the expense of love, and that material happiness can completely consume human felicity. A perfect heartrending tale of self-discovery and the truth about perfection, Skipping a Beat is a book that I surely won't forget, surely can't forget, and will forever be imbued by its poignant and satisfying message. Quote: "The first person I saw after I whipped through the hospital's revolving door made me want to spin right back around onto the sidewalk. Dale, the top lawyer for Michael's company, had planted himself in the middle of the lobby, next to a young couple holding a screeching newborn baby. I didn't blame the baby; Dale had that effect on me, too."
Rating: 4Cute book! I liked this one much better than Opposite of Me. This book is about losing yourself and how we take the most important things in life for granted. I really liked how the book was written and how it slowly unfolded, how Julia took a long time to let her guard down, made it seem more real.Definite recommend.
Rating: 4I am still mulling over the entirety of this novel, but Michael and Julia's story was thought provoking. Michael's brush with a heart attack and subsequent changes on his views of life and marriage are certainly warranted. I thought Pekkanen did a great job with Julia's character and made her likeable even with her reticence. Julia and Michael's success at life doesn't have to be the only thing that defines them, this is a very interesting journey.
Rating: 4It can be difficult to acknowledge that you’re no longer the same person at 35 that you were at 18. (It can be difficult to acknowledge you’re 35, period.) And when you’re partnered with the same person at 35 that you were with at 18, acknowledging that neither of you are the same people any more can be downright threatening to life as you know it, but sometimes circumstances force it on you anyway. It happens to a lot of us, but not necessarily the way it happens to Julia Dunhill in Sarah Pekkanen’s second novel, Skipping a Beat.Julia and Michael have been together since they were Julie and Mike, small-town kids from West Virginia who shared a desire to make good in the world and the drive to work to make it happen. And they HAVE made it, with material success beyond anything they might have imagined back when they were younger...but now it feels like they share little besides their enormous home and possessions, and they’ve gotten used to living that way. It all changes on the day Michael comes back from a near-death experience - and he’s come back ready to change everything else.Pekkanen has written the novel in Julia’s first-person voice, and one thing that struck me is that she’s not afraid to make her narrator unsympathetic at times. Julia’s pondering over whether to stay with her husband after he’s declared his intention to give away everything he has could easily be viewed as materialistic and heartless, under the circumstances. But Julia is also pondering how she and Michael got to the place they’re in now, and that provides a context for the reader to understand that her concerns aren’t as strictly materialistic as they may seem. While she may not always come across as sympathetic - or maybe because of that - Julia did come across to me as emotionally honest and complicated, and I was impressed with Pekkanen’s ability to portray that.I was also impressed with the novel’s exploration of the complexities of marriage. Julia is made to confront the often-unspoken compromises and agreements couples sometimes make so that they won’t be forced to examine things too closely, the separation that can develop - and come to feel normal - between two too-busy people, and the challenges of communication, and I thought that these elements were effectively incorporated into the story. I found some of the situations in the novel a little contrived and wasn’t always convinced by the characters’ behavior in those situations, but I did feel that the characters’ emotional portrayal rang true and was quite convincing, and I really appreciate the author’s ability to bring that across to me.I still haven’t gotten around to reading Sarah Pekkanen’s first novel, The Opposite of Me, but I’m not at all sorry I didn’t wait to read her second. Skipping a Beat presents a rather unique situation with a degree of emotional honesty that makes it accessible and satisfying.
Rating: 4Wow, what a book. Ms. Pekkanen really has an inside look on marriage and womanhood. When Michael has a death experience one day during a meeting, he changes completely. Without consulting his wife, Julia, he decides he will give away all he owns in order to make amends for things he has done. He also wants to concentrate fully on his wife Julia who he has neglected since starting his own business on the way to becoming a multi-millionaire. But it's not that simple. Julia has gotten use to their life and she resents him for pulling the money out from under her and she's holding other resentments as well.Honestly there were times I thought I would put the book down. Julia would seem a little childish but then Ms. Pekkanen would delve into the whys of her actions and thoughts and then I understood Julia so much more. I think every woman will find some of herself in Julia, whether it has to do with marriage or relationship with family members or just trying to get ahead. Julia turns out to be a remarkable character who grows through the book and learns to let go. I enjoyed watching her journey and really felt for her at times. Anyone who is married knows there are always rocky times and you both have to work to make it last. Ms. Pekkanen does a wonderful job of showing this yet showing that sometimes it's better not to give up.Michael was fascinating and it's not until later in the book that you really get into his motivations as well and you begin to understand the whys of what he is doing. I think the author did a magnificient job of layering the plot so we pulled away layer by layer to see how the characters would develop next. At times I wanted to bop both of them on the head, but there was a purpose to those times and it made the other times in the novel all the more special.I also enjoyed Julia's friend, Isabelle, she brought a nice sideline into the story and also some humor. I think all women want a friend like Isabelle, one who will laugh with you, cry with you and set you straight when you need to be. I enjoyed watching their friendship.The book moves quickly. It is like you open the book to the first page and the next thing you know you have read 100 pages and if those first 100 pages went fast then the last half of the book moves even faster. It kept me up past my bedtime because I just had to finish it to see what would happen.And that is all I am going to give you - just know it is a special book. If you enjoy stories by Emily Giffin and Elizabeth Berg then give Sarah Pekkanen a try. I know I am going to go back and read Opposite of Me now that I have read Skipping a Beat. These are the types of stories I really enjoy. Give me women characters who are struggling and not perfect, ones I can relate to and you have me hooked. Ms. Pekkanen has gained a new fan in me after reading Skipping a Beat.
Rating: 5Julia and Michael have been living separate lives for a long time now. So when Michael has a heart attack and "dies" for over 4 minutes, Julia is jolted by the strength of her reaction. But that pales in comparison with her reaction to the Michael who now inhabits her husband's body. He is caring and concerned and determined to make their marriage strong and loving, like it once was. He seems to need to atone for so may things that he has done wrong, chief among them letting his wife drift away as he concentrated single-mindedly on the business that made him extremely, obscenely wealthy.As Michael works hard to woo Julia back, he also drops the bombshell that he is selling his company and giving away all of his money. He says that he has realized that the money has never made him happy but Julia struggles with his decision and debates whether she wants a relationship with her husband at all. Small pieces of their past together (they were high school sweethearts) start emerging in this tale of marriage, love, second chances, and forgiveness. And as Julia's former life comes out, the reader understands her reluctance to trust Michael and her terror at the thought of all of the money being given away.I had a few issues with the story, the largest being that Michael did not see that his unilateral decisions for their marriage were just that: unilateral. I know that the point was made that Julia and Michael's finances were intentionally kept separate but their life was not. The lifestyle that his money bought, the houses, the shopping, the high profile friends and acquaintances was all of a piece and his decision to give it all away without any input from Julia was still selfish even if he paid for it all. A marriage is a partnership and since that was what Michael was trying to hard to resurrect in their marriage, it was a little hard to swallow that he would go about it in such a singular way. The other biggish issue that I had was that the ending was a little overly foreshadowed. It was better than the only other alternative I can imagine given the story arc though so I can mostly forgive the predictability.Julia, as a character, is very sympathetic. She is completely real. The massive amounts of money that she has become accustomed to having has not changed who she fundamentally is inside. She's still the poor girl from WV who is unexpectedly uncomfortable in this new world. She is a good and loyal friend who cares deeply about the happiness and lives of the people around her. She is the kind of woman who can befriend a captivating young boy playing with his dog beside a river, finding a sweet companionship in his company. She is the woman who can put on the perfect benefit or event be it large or small and who thrives on doing so. She's also the woman who has not been able to forgive her father for his gambling addiction and the effect that had on her mother, nevermind the way in which it damaged her own ability to trust. As she faces the reality of the new Michael and his desire to make up to her all the neglect and disinterest that has been the hallmark of so much of their marriage, she debates her options, never knowing herself what she is finally going to choose to do until she is actually in the moment. The reader feels her pain and confusion, understands it, even as we also understand that she still loves her husband, the man he once was and the man he seems to be trying so hard to prove that he can be again.Ultimately the story is sweet and takes a close look at the reality of marriage, the way in which love is just the starting point to which so much other junk is added, sometimes to the point that that love is buried and obscured. Money and trust and time itself are all major issues in any marriage and Pekkanen has teased out a tale where they take top billing and she has done so with originality and sensitivity.
Rating: 4