Summer of Roses

The New York Times bestselling author of Dance With Me and Beach Girls revisits characters from Summer's Child in this examination of the emotional fallout of battered woman syndrome. When Mara Jameson thinks about her wedding, she painfully and vividly recalls her betrothed, Edward Hunter, the Harvard rugby player with a ""blank yet somehow charged"" stare. Mara ran away after Edward began abusing her and shortly before she had her daughter, Rose. Now, nine years later, Mara's living as Lily Malone in an isolated cottage near Cape Hawk, Nova Scotia, with Liam Neill, a member of the village's pre-eminent family. When Mara-cum-Lily learns Maeve Jameson, her grandmother, is comatose after suffering an undiagnosed ""neurological event,"" she, believing Edward was involved, comes out of hiding to try to save her. Edward, ever the epitome of evil, soon hears the news of Lily's return and welcomes her back with an incendiary custody battle. Back in Cape Hawk, Lily's best friend Marisa, also a battered wife, longs to be reunited with her estranged sister in the Fallen Angels, their college fiddle and song duo. Prolific romance novelist Rice handles the complex plot with aplomb so all her likable characters win in the end and Edward, naturally, gets his comeuppance.