Sunlight Finds You: A Read with Jenna Pick
A Novel
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4.3 • 7 Ratings
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
READ WITH JENNA BOOK CLUB PICK AS FEATURED ON TODAY
"Gorgeous." —People
“The perfect summer read...it is propulsive and drenched in light, just like the title.” —Jenna Bush Hager
“Radiant...What begins as a teenage romance in 1950s Florida becomes an intimate, deeply moving story of separation, sacrifice, and self-determination—and of how early love shapes the lives we carry forward.” —Christina Baker Kline
“The kind of book that makes you lean closer, then hold your breath as the beauty and betrayal unfold. I couldn’t stop reading. I couldn’t stop hoping. What an extraordinary novel!” —Ariel Lawhon
A forbidden love blows open the world of a teenage girl, altering the trajectory of her life–from the author of the New York Times bestseller The Chaperone
It’s 1949, early in the Cold War, but St. Petersburg, Florida is warm, lush, and booming with newcomers seeking sunshine and opportunity. For seventeen-year-old Nora, St. Pete feels like paradise, especially after she meets and wins over Leonard, the shy, brilliant son of transplanted New Yorkers. Nora and Leonard are soon spending balmy days and evenings together, and in her adoring, encouraging company, he grows more confident, even as he remains tender and caring. Leonard's sophisticated mother welcomes Nora into their lives, but his father distrusts her motives.
When his suspicions are seemingly confirmed, Nora is forced to cut contact. In her longing and fear, she takes a chance that changes her life, exiling her from the family she loves and setting off a chain of secrets and betrayals that will follow her into adulthood. It is a mature Nora who tells the story of her turbulent past. Wiser and more worldly, she commits to an honest but compassionate account, and to a future based on trusting, first and foremost, herself.
Sunlight Finds You is, ultimately, a love story set in the past that has much to say about our present. Richly layered and propulsive, it’s a book about extending forgiveness—for ourselves, and for others—and about refusing to settle for a life that is less than full.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
This historical drama begins with a tender teenage romance before revealing the devastating realities that young women faced in 1950s America. When love blooms between 17-year-old Nora and sweet, shy swim team member Leonard, it looks like the start of a happy future. But his parents don’t agree, and the pair are torn apart just as Nora becomes pregnant. Leonard is forced to enlist in the Korean War, and Nora is sent to a punishing home for unwed mothers, altering her life’s trajectory forever. Laura Moriarty (The Chaperone) draws a soul-crushing portrait of Nora’s experiences at the home, where she’s offered no choice but to give up her daughter for a closed adoption. Moriarty makes you feel those traumatic wounds, and they keep stinging even as Nora tries vainly to find happiness as a housewife to another man. Sunlight Finds You is a story of intolerance, lies, and betrayal, but it’s also one of hope and eventual healing.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A humble Missouri-born teen moves to St. Petersburg, Fla., in 1947 and falls into a star-crossed romance with a rich New Yorker in this twisty coming-of-age drama from Moriarty (The Chaperone). It was Nora Chesnow's stepmother, Mae, who suggested the family move to St. Pete, after her father remarried following her mother's sudden death from an aneurysm. Two years after their arrival, Nora, 17, becomes captivated by Leonard Lifton, a new classmate who frequents a country club and lives on a fancy island. They bond over George Orwell's Animal Farm and quickly become inseparable, but Leonard's father suspects Nora will trick Leonard into getting her pregnant. After a farcical misunderstanding, his parents forbid him from seeing her. Devastated, Leonard gives up his plan to go to college back north and joins the Army. He sees Nora during a visit to St. Pete, and she ends up pregnant after all. When Leonard is taken prisoner in Korea, Nora cannot reach him and is sent to a home for unwed mothers. After a shocking revelation, the third act barrels toward a conclusion that is by turns heartbreaking and heartwarming. Readers will fall for the delightful and well-rounded Nora and Leonard as much as they do for each other.
