First published 2009
Isabel Gillies thought she had everything figured out. She lived with her husband Josiah and their two toddler sons in New York City, surrounded by love and possibility. When Josiah accepted a teaching position at a college in Ohio, Isabel packed up their life and followed him to the Midwest. She threw herself into teaching acting and embraced the slower pace of small town life with her boys. Then Josiah told her he was leaving. The marriage she had built crumbled in months. Her friends told her this kind of thing happens every day, but that offered little comfort as Isabel watched her carefully constructed world fall apart. She had to figure out how to rebuild her life as a single mother while processing the shock of abandonment. This memoir captures the raw experience of a woman trying to light a candle instead of cursing the darkness, learning to love a life that looks nothing like what she planned.
Genres: contemporary, memoir, non-fiction, family-drama
Vibes: emotional-atmospheric, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, rebuilding-life
Setting: New York City, Ohio
Period: 21st-century
272 pages · Hardcover · Scribner