Part of Rose Gardner Mystery
First published 2013
Rose Gardner wakes up one morning and Joe is gone. No real explanation, no goodbye that makes sense. She is left in Henryetta, Arkansas, trying to piece together days that no longer feel like hers. Her friends pull her back toward solid ground, and one unexpected person shows up to help in ways she never anticipated. Meanwhile Joe is not free. His father has used blackmail to yank him away from Rose and push him into a race for the Arkansas State Senate. Joe believes leaving was the only way to keep her safe. But safety has a cost. Rose has people around her. Joe has no one, except the person he least wants to accept help from. The two of them move through their grief on opposite tracks, each convinced the other has moved on. This is a story about what happens after love breaks apart, told through the daily, unglamorous work of surviving it.
Genres: literary-fiction, domestic-fiction, contemporary, adult, adult-fiction, contemporary-romance
Vibes: bittersweet, character-driven, emotional, intimate, introspective, melancholic
Tropes: forced-separation, found-family, parallel-narratives, second-chance-romance
Setting: Henryetta, Arkansas, Arkansas
Period: contemporary
122 pages · Paperback · CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Content warnings: emotional-abuse