Julia Dunhill, a thirty-something party planner, seems to have it all: Married to her high school sweetheart and living in a gorgeous home in Washington D.C., she imagines her future unfolding very much as it has for the past few years, since she and her husband Michael successfully launched their companies. There will be dinner parties to attend, operas to dress up for, and weddings and benefits to organize for her growing list of clients. There will be shopping sprees with her best friend, Isabelle, and inevitably those last five pounds to shed. In her darker moments, she worries that her marriage has dissolved from a true partnership into a façade, but she convinces herself it’s due to the intensity of their careers and fast-paced lifestyle.
So as she arranges the molten chocolate cupcakes for the annual Opera benefit, how can she know that her carefully-constructed world is about to fall apart? That her husband will stand up from the head of the table in his company’s boardroom, open his mouth to speak, and crash to the carpeted floor… all in the amount of time it will take her to walk across a ballroom floor just a few miles away. Four minutes and eight seconds after his cardiac arrest, a portable defibrillator jump-starts Michael’s heart. But in those lost minutes he becomes a different man, with an altered perspective on the rarified life they’ve been living and a determination to regain the true intimacy they once shared. Now it is up to Julia to decide — is it worth upending her comfortable world to try to find her way back to the husband she once adored, or should she walk away from this new Michael, who truthfully became a stranger to her long before his change of heart?
I brought this book along with me on vacation with the express purpose of reading it on the plane ride home. I picked it up on the second to the last day while sitting in the sun and could not put it down! I was drawn into the story from the first sentence. You will quickly begin to care about and connect with the characters. Their stories are told in easy to follow past and present POVs. It was a thought provoking, tear producing, fantastic read. Needless to say, I had to get another book to read on the way home.Author: Sarah Pekkanen
Published: February 2011
Pages: 352
Genre: Fiction/Women's
Source: Library
Finished: 4-16-11
4 Bears
7 comments:
A friend recommended this book to me this week as well. After reading your thoughts on it I know I will have to give this a try soon!
I know I will love it just by all of the emotions it provoked in you!
I never heard of this one, but it sounds excellent. I'm adding it to my list.
Sounds good.
I think this one is going on my ever growing TBR list. It sounds like an interesting book.
Congrats on being The Shining Star. I enjoyed the interview you had with Cheryl. It's always fun to learn a bit more about other bookie friends.
I've heard so many good things about this book. I really need to read it! Glad you enjoyed it so much.
That's quite an endorsement. It's going on my list.
Thanks for catching the error on my quiz today. My insert button got hit (could be by a little guy who thinks the keyboard is fun) and I made lots of mistakes today before I realized it!
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