Skipping a Beat
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4.6 • 5 Ratings
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- $9.99
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
From the outside, Julia and Michael seem to have it all. Both products of difficult childhoods in rural West Virginia, they become high school sweethearts. Now in their thirties, they're living a rarified life in a multi-million-dollar, Washington, D.C. home. Julia is a sought-after party planner and Michael has just sold his beverage company for $70 million.
Then Michael collapses. Four minutes and eight seconds after his cardiac arrest, a portable defibrillator jumpstarts his heart. But in those lost minutes he becomes a different man. Money is meaningless to him and he wants to give it all away. Julia, who sees her life reflected in scenes from the world's great operas, has
three weeks to make a choice: Walk away from the man she once adored, but who became a stranger to her even before this pronouncement, or give in to her husband's pleas for a second chance and a promise of a poorer but happier life?
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Dead in the first sentence of Pekkanen's strained second novel (after The Opposite of Me), Michael Dunhill, a D.C. hotshot and the millionaire husband of narrator Julia, comes to after a few flat-lined minutes, ready for a change. What follows is a disjointed exploration of his wife's coming to terms with this development and a bulky series of flashbacks. Michael's near-death resolution involves restoring his marriage and donating his wealth to charity, much to the displeasure of Julia, who has become overinvested in their wealthy lifestyle. Michael spends most of the book radiating the grating beneficence of a religious charismatic while Julia moves from understandable annoyance to love and regret all without much convincing connection. Pekkanen does sometimes break through the surface to offer occasional insight into married life or the effects of wealth and power, but much page space is consumed with familiar frivolities like designer clothes, chocolate binges, and fruity drinks shared with saucy friends. It doesn't achieve the substance it strives for, but readers seeking yet another quippy diversion won't be disappointed.
