It Started in June
Kensington, May 29, 2018
Grace Trumbull’s after work drink with Bradley Hanover, a handsome younger colleague, on a warm summer night turns into an impulsive, intimate encounter. After a few weeks of exhilarating secret dates, Grace—forty-two and divorced—realizes she’s pregnant.
For Grace, whose estranged mother refers to her own teenage pregnancy as her biggest mistake, the prospect of parenthood is daunting. She’s just been made vice president of a media relations company and is child free by choice. Still, something deeper than her fear makes her want to keep the baby. She knows she can be a better, more capable parent than her mother was to her.
As months pass and seasons change, Grace questions her decision to include Bradley in her plans. But they continue to navigate their complicated relationship, each struggling with what it means to make a commitment to someone. Can a woman with a troubled childhood and a man who has never known trouble merge their divergent experiences into a loving and sustainable life together?
Every Other Wednesday
Kensington, April 25, 2017
For years, Joan, Ellie, and Alice enjoyed a casual friendship while volunteering at their children’s Connecticut high school. Now, with those children grown and gone to college, a local tragedy brings the three into contact again. But what begins as a catch-up lunch soon moves beyond small talk to the struggles of this next stage of life.
Joan has spent twenty years of marriage doing what’s expected of Howard women: shopping, dressing well, and keeping a beautiful home. Unfulfilled, her boredom and emptiness eventually find a secret outlet at the local casino. Meanwhile, Ellie’s efforts to expand her accounting business lead to a new friendship that clashes with her family’s traditional worldview. And Alice, feeling increasingly distant from her husband, and alienated from her once fit body, takes up running again. But a terrifying ordeal shatters her confidence and spurs a decision that will affect all three women in different ways.
Over the course of an eventful year, Joan, Ellie, and Alice will meet every other Wednesday to talk, plan, and find the courage to redefine themselves.
Every Other Wednesday is also available in audio and in large print.
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The Summer Cottage
Kensington, May 26, 2015
Helen Street spent every summer of her childhood at her family’s cedar-shake cottage on Long Island Sound. The youngest of four, she had her mother Claire’s athletic genes and relished the orchestrated games and competitions that filled those endless days. Unlike her older siblings – fiery Charlotte, ambitious Thomas, and middle-child Pammy – Helen rarely felt the pressure of her mother’s high expectations.
Thirty years later, Helen’s brother and sisters are scattered, and she is the sole caregiver for Claire, now terminally ill. Knowing her death is imminent, Claire has put Helen in the awkward position of telling the others that their mother plans on leaving everything, including the cottage, to Helen when she dies – unless everyone comes to the shore for a long weekend over the Fourth of July. During this time together, the siblings revisit buried memories that both re-ignite their resentment and kindle their kinship, helping them to discover the power of family.
This second printing of The Summer Cottage includes the first four chapters of Every Other Wednesday, and is available in large print, too.
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A Changing Marriage
Kensington, February 25, 2014
Karen Spears and Bob Parsons meet in college and embark upon the kind of enviable, picture-perfect relationship featured in romantic movies. Bob is ambitious and adoring; Karen is bright and beautiful. And nothing seems more natural to them than getting married right after Karen’s graduation. Newlywed life meets all of Karen’s expectations. Bob’s career is soaring and Karen has a fulfilling job of her own – one that’s put on hold when she becomes pregnant. But their caring partnership begins to slip away as Bob’s single-minded pursuit of the next promotion blinds him to how overwhelmed Karen feels as a stay-at-home mother. When resentment and disenchantment build on both sides, Karen finds herself at a crossroads.
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The Good Life
Kensington, February 26, 2013
The Good Life is a story about wealthy and savvy Ann Barons, who lives in the Midwest with her CEO husband and two unattended teenage children. Her infatuation with status and material things has obfuscated the values instilled in her as a child growing up on a farm in eastern Pennsylvania. Exercising, shopping, and making appearances at board meetings and charity events fill her otherwise unscheduled days; she considers her life both full and enviable. Her luxurious adult existence and the simple country life she left behind collide when her headstrong mother and dementia-laden father re-enter her life seeking temporary housing. Their old-fashioned work ethic and values create confusion, frustration, and an unexpected transformation in all the Baronses, especially Ann.
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