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From the critically acclaimed author of Shotgun Lovesongs comes an exquisitely written, small-town story about one couple's hard-won second chance at love, forty years after their divorce.
Charlie and Vivian parted ways after just four years of marriage. Too many problems, too many struggles, even though the love didn't quite die. When Charlie returns to Wisconsin forty years later, he's not sure what he'll find. He is sure of one thing -- he must try to reconnect with Vivian to pick up the broken pieces of their past. But forty years is a long time. It's forty years of other relationships, forty years of building new lives, and forty years of long-held regrets, mistakes, and painful secrets.
A brave and triumphant exploration of redemption and sunset triumph, A Forty Year Kiss is a once-in-a-lifetime love story, written with dazzling lyricism and remarkable clarity of spirit, from a celebrated author at the top of his game. It's a literary valentine that promises to be a love story for the ages.
"This charming and empathetic portrayal of the Midwest and its denizens explores late-in-life romance, the pangs of regret, and the possibility of renewal no matter how much time has passed." ―Booklist
"The novel is beautiful and full of complex characters. It is a love story, not only between Charlie and Vivian but also between the novel and the Midwest, as the characters journey between Eau Claire, Chippewa Falls, and Spooner, WI, along with Minneapolis and Chicago. Fans of Butler and of romance will be delighted with this novel." —Library Journal
"A big-hearted, comforting novel about second chances―at love, at recovery, at forgiveness and redemption. Butler treats all his characters with dignity and affection. When we die, we'd all be lucky to come back as a character in a Nickolas Butler novel." ―Ash Davidson, author of Damnation Spring
"Life-affirming and straight up beautiful. Will stoke the good fire in your chest. I absolutely loved it. A must-read." ―Matthew Quick, New York Times bestselling author of The Silver Linings Playbook
"Thank you, Nickolas Butler, for writing a love story that feels so powerfully real, a story that captures the hope, grace, and joy of new love―but also the mistakes, scar tissue, and regret of past love. It's a wonder to behold, a novel capable of such breadth. This is the kind of book that makes me a better human." ―Nathan Hill, New York Times bestselling author of The Nix and Wellness
This information about A Forty Year Kiss was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: OliveJuiceStudios.com
Nickolas Butler was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, raised in Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and educated at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop. His first novel was the internationally best-selling and prize-winning Shotgun Lovesongs, which has been optioned for film development and has been translated into over ten languages. Beneath the Bonfire, a collection of short stories, followed a year later. In 2017, he published The Hearts of Men which was short-listed for two of France's most prestigious literary prizes even before its American publishing. In 2019, his fourth book, Little Faith was published to critical acclaim. Butler published Godspeed in 2021, a literary thriller set in Jackson Hole, Wyoming that was longlisted for the Reading the West ...
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