Home Before Dark
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4.4 • 13 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
In this reader-favorite tale, #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs captures the heartache of long-held regrets as one young woman comes to terms with her past…and reveals devastating secrets.
As an irresponsible young mother, Jessie Ryder knew she’d never be able to give her newborn the stable family that her older sister could, and the security her child deserved. So Luz and her husband adopted little Lila and told her Jessie was but a distant aunt.
Sixteen years later, having traveled the world with the winds of remorse at her back, Jessie is suspending her photojournalism career to return home—even if it means throwing her sister’s world into turmoil.
Where life once seemed filled with boundless opportunity, Jessie is now on a journey to redeem her careless past, bringing with her a terrible burden. Jessie’s arrival is destined to expose the secrets and lies that barely held her daughter’s adoptive family together to begin with, yet the truth can do so much more than just hurt. It can bring you home to a new kind of honesty, shedding its light into the deepest corners of the heart.
Originally published in 2003.
Includes an exclusive excerpt from BETWEEN YOU AND ME by Susan Wiggs, coming soon from William Morrow!
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Jessie Ryder, the heroine of this latest novel from romance veteran Wiggs (Halfway to Heaven), returns to her Texas hometown after 16 years to visit Lila, the daughter she gave up for adoption to her older sister, Luz. Her eyesight is deteriorating rapidly from a rare disease, and soon she will no longer be able to continue her successful work as a photojournalist. She now wants to tell Lila the truth about her parentage, but Luz balks at the idea. Luz has chosen a starkly different lifestyle, making a home for her husband Ian, three boys and Lila, who's now a rebellious, out-of-control teenager. Both sisters are envious of the other's choices, and free-spirited Jessie's sudden arrival turns Luz's world not as stable as it seems on the surface upside down. As long-buried family secrets come to the surface, Luz and Ian's marriage threatens to unravel. Meanwhile, Jessie's wanderlust is held in check when she falls in love with Dusty Matlock, a local widowed pilot with a two-year-old. The novel sets up provocative family tensions, but these are resolved too easily. Wiggs's tendency to overwrite ("a wave of devastating love and protectiveness rolled over him with crushing strength") and lackluster humor ("Jeez, you're turning into a drama queen," Lila says to Jessie, who quips, "I've been wanting a change of careers") may further disappoint readers. Some of the scenes are finely drawn, however, especially those set at Beacon for the Blind, a facility for training those without eyesight to live independently. Major ad/promo; author tour.
