The hits keep coming for Carly Sears. Her husband Joe was killed in Vietnam, and the joy she felt at discovering she was pregnant turned to devastation when she learns her unborn baby has a fatal heart defect. Her brother-in-law tells her a way her baby can survive and it sounds insane to Carly… but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to save her baby girl.
Laura Brandon, renowned astronomer, promised her dying father she would look after Sarah Tolley, a woman with no family who lived in a retirement home. Despite the fact that she’d never heard of her and had no idea who she was or how her father knew her, Laura felt obligated to fulfill his dying request. However, when she told her husband, Ray, about it, he tried to dissuade her from doing it, shocking her with his uncharacteristic display of anger when she refused to reconsider. Ray accused Laura of giving too little of herself to him and her daughter, Emma, saying she was always rushing off to further her career, or taking on pet projects, and never spending enough time with her family. Laura is stunned and hurt by this, but thinks his upset most likely stems from his inability to publish a book he’d poured his heart into writing. Ray apologizes, but is still upset that she still plans to see Sarah Tolley.
Riley Macpherson has returned to her childhood home to deal with her father, Frank’s, estate after his death. She’s in a vulnerable state, overwhelmed by the numerous things she has to attend to in settling the estate, and feeling alone in her grief, with no one left to turn to for comfort. She’s recently ended a two year relationship that was going nowhere. Her older brother, an emotionally distant, psychologically-damaged Iraq war veteran named Danny, wants nothing to do with any of it, due to the strained relationship he had with their father. Cancer had taken her mother seven years ago, and child-prodigy violinist Lisa, the older sister she never knew, committed suicide when Riley was less than two years old. At twenty five years old, Riley feels as if she’s lost her entire family.
The Geeky Bibliophile 
You must be logged in to post a comment.