"Women's Fiction that Romance Readers will Enjoy"

Rita Blair Rollins has no idea why Doc Hastings thinks she is qualified to lead a women's breast cancer support group. She figures they will soon find out just how unqualified she is and find someone else. But being the kind soul she is, she leaps to the challenge. She knows too that this is just one more step in an anonymous benefactor donating money for a much-needed Women's Health Center on Martha's Vineyard.

Katie Gillette is an American pop princess who has taken the music world by storm. Most of her material has been covers of her mothers songs, her mother being a huge star in the 70s. Her father, who helped make her mother a star, has done the same with Katie. After a long time trying to get Katie booked in Central Park, he succeeds in a booking for the 4th of July. Katie should be thrilled. But she isn't. How can she tell her father she won't be able to perform? How can she tell him that she is not only pregnant but also has breast cancer? To get away from it all, she leaves the Big Apple for Martha's Vineyard, eventually reconciling with her reclusive mother who lives there.

Hannah has lived on Martha's Vineyard for years moving there after a shameful incident has made her give up her dream of becoming a doctor. She is married with three children, including one rebellious teenager. A schoolteacher, Hannah's marriage has been troubled due to her husband's distance and she has struck up a friendship with the school principal. She has her hands full with her family and her radiation treatments, but she really hopes for more than friendship with the principal.

Faye is a successful business woman from Boston whose cancer has returned. She is sure this time it will be fatal. Before she dies she wants to find the son who she hasn't heard from in 10 years. He fled their Martha's Vineyard beach house, blaming himself for a family tragedy. Needing some time for herself, she leaves Boston for the beach house, and all its memories. She is shocked to find herself face to face with the woman she blames for breaking up her marriage.

These four very different women forge a friendship and help each other through many different battles in addition to their breast cancer. Jean Stone has written a real pageturner. I absolutely couldn't put it down. This is the first book I've read by this author and it certainly won't be the last. Reminiscent of books by authors such as Kristin Hannah, Luanne Rice, and Barbara Delinsky, this book will also appeal to romance readers who like that happily-ever-after ending.

Reviewed by Maudeen Wachsmith
Posted May 8, 2003

No one captures the tide of a woman's heart quite like Jean Stone in her highly acclaimed novels set on New England's celebrated island, Martha's Vineyard.

This new novel brings back one of the author's most memorable characters, Rita Blair-Rollins. Rita reluctantly meets three courageous women whose struggles ultimately change her life and reveal startling truths about the people and places she only thought she knew....

Summary

Lifelong Vineyarder Rita Blair-Rollins is more than a little surprised at old Doc Hastings's proposal. A former waitress, summer cottage housekeeper, and real-estate saleswoman, now the harried mother of rambunctious twin toddlers, daughter of a cantankerous mother, and wife of a saint, Rita thinks she is far from the perfect role model to head a breast cancer support group. But Doc Hastings needs her-her help could result in a much-needed women's center for the island. Rita sets aside her hectic life and plunges into a world of secrets, lies, and hope, where even her own past cannot stay hidden long.

The women begin as strangers: Katie, the vibrant, violet- eyed rock star who must choose between saving her own life and the life of her unborn child; Hannah, the selfless housewife who finds herself abandoned by her friends just when she needs them most; and Faye, the wealthy marketing executive who thought she'd already survived the greatest fight of her life.

Before the summer ends, these women will form a lasting bond. For Rita, it will be a season of bittersweet discovery-a summer when old hurts are finally healed and love becomes rekindled as life begins anew....