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Barbara Delinsky depicts, with exquisite accuracy, the ties that bind each of us to those people and places we hold most dear.
Coast Road. Where life's greatest gifts come to us by accident.
Barbara Delinsky has always had a gift for creating tales of extraordinary emotional power and depth. Now this New York Times bestselling author of Three Wishes surpasses herself once again in a novel that takes readers on a journey as richly textured, colorful, and poignant as the northern California landscape in which the book is set.
Rachel Keats and Jack McGill were artists, deeply in love when they married, until the rush of life took its toll. After ten years of marriage, they divorced and went their separate ways. Jack stayed in San Francisco. Rachel moved with their two young daughters to Big Sur.
Six years later, an alarming middle-of-the-night phone call demands that Jack put aside his own busy life and career as a leading architect to rush to his ex-wife's hospital bed. While she lies lifeless, Jack maintains a bedside vigil and finds himself getting to know Rachel better than he ever did -- through their daughters, her friends, and, even more revealingly, through her art. Meanwhile, the beauty and grace of the redwood canyon where she has made their home also work their own special alchemy upon Jack. He begins to see Rachel, his daughters, and the story of his marriage with new eyes.
Coast Road celebrates those things in life that matter most -- the kinship of neighbors, the companionship of friends, and the irreplaceable time spent with children and family. In this masterful new novel, Barbara Delinsky depicts with exquisite accuracy the ties that bind each of us to those people and places we hold most dear.
Prologue
WHEN THE PHONE rang, Rachel Keats was painting sea otters. She was working in oils and had finally gotten the right mix of black for the eyes. There was no way she was stopping to pick up the phone. She had warned Samantha about that.
"Hi! You've reached Rachel, Samantha, and Hope. We're otherwise occupied. Please leave your name and number, and we'll call you back. Thanks."
Through a series of beeps, she applied a smudge of oil with a round brush. Then came a deep male voice that was too old to be calling for Samantha. Rachel would have pictured a gorgeous guy to go with the voice, but he'd said his name too fast. This man wasn't gorgeous. He was a ticket agent, a friend of a friend, more sleeze than style, but apparently good at his job. "I have in my hand three tickets for tonight's Garth Brooks concert," he said. "San Jose. Goooood seats. I need to hear from you in five minutes or I'm moving down my list --"
Rachel made a ...
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