Ordinary Love
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
A page-turning, irresistible novel of class, ambition, and love, this is the breathtaking story of a woman risking everything for a second chance at the one who got away • "A brilliant examination of queerness, friendship, motherhood, longing and ambition. It’s funny and moving and sexy. Above all, it’s a stunning love story.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, bestselling author of The Cliffs
Emily has, by all appearances, a perfect life: a townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, two healthy children, and a husband who showers her with attention. But the truth is more complicated: Emily’s marriage is in trouble, her relationship with her parents is fraught, and she is still nursing a heartbreak from long ago. When Emily runs into her high school girlfriend at a cocktail party, that heartbreak comes roaring back. But Gen Hall is no longer the lanky, hungry kid with holes in her shoes who Emily loved in her youth. Instead, Gen is now a famous Olympic athlete with sponsorship deals and a string of high-profile ex-girlfriends.
Emily and Gen circle one another cautiously, drawn together by a magnetic attraction and scarred by their shared history. Once upon a time, Gen knew everything about Emily. And yet, she still abandoned her. Can Emily trust Gen again? Can they forgive each other for the mistakes they made in their past? Should Emily risk her children, her privacy, and the fragile peace she has found to be with a woman she loved long ago?
A sweeping romance, Ordinary Love is the beautiful, wrenching, completely seductive story of two people trying to forge a path toward hope, bound by a love they discovered when they were too young to understand its power.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Bestselling YA author Rutkoski (Real Easy) makes her adult debut with a raw and moving second-chance love story that tenderly tracks a woman's determined efforts to regain self-worth as she heals from an abusive marriage and reunites with a past love. For many years, Emily has convinced herself that she's happy with her affluent and seemingly doting husband, Jack. But as Jack's red flags accumulate—including controlling tendencies, bursts of anger, and a dangerous punishment for their young son—the happy facade fractures. Amid major emotional upheaval as Emily considers how to safely extricate herself from her marriage, she runs into her high school best friend and first love, Gen, at a fundraiser. Once a gangly teen with lofty ambitions, Gen is now a stranger to Emily but is known to the public as a distinguished Olympic athlete with a heart of gold and a reputation as a heartbreaker. Both women are responsible for deep wounds in the other that have persisted despite their years apart, but their unmistakable bond draws them back together. Rutkoski tracks their slow rekindling in stunning prose that skillfully weaves past and present. The result is a brutal yet beautiful story that captures what it means to genuinely support, cherish, and love another person.
