RAINY DAY EXCERPTS: “LEFT: A LOVE STORY”

Welcome to another Tuesday celebrating bookish events, First Chapter/Intros, originally hosted by Bibliophile by the Sea and now hosted by I’d Rather Be at the Beach; and Teaser Tuesdays hosted by The Purple Booker.

Today’s feature is a recent download:  Left (e-book), by Mary Hogan, an unforgettable tale about life’s aching uncertainties—and a woman who discovers that somewhere between hope and reality, an unexpected future will find its way forward.

 

 

 

Intro:  I never meant for it to happen.  Though, isn’t that what they all say?  My heart was at the wheel; my mind and body were buckled, helpless, in the backseat?  Lola was along for the ride, of course.  Best friends like her appear only once or twice or maybe three times in a lifetime.

Lola—leggy, striking, indifferent—was standing a few feet back when love broadsided me.  More precisely, when lust hit in a T-bone collision.  Because that’s what it was.  Blind and combustible want.  A longing so fiery I felt like a flushed teenager.  As if I would incinerate if we didn’t connect.

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Teaser:  I waited for feelings of love to creep back in like a fog.  The way they always did after a fight.  Always had, before my husband of two decades became a man I didn’t recognize (p. 58).

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Synopsis:  It started as a dream vacation in Spain, with Fay and Paul Agarra enjoying all the delights of a European holiday. A respected New York City judge, Paul has always been the man Fay can rely on, no matter what. When he inexplicably disappears from a Barcelona street corner, Fay knows something is terribly wrong. Once reunited, Paul shrugs off the episode as a simple misunderstanding—but Fay suspects her almost perfect life has taken a dark and sudden turn.

Soon there are more signs that Paul is beginning to change. Bouts of forgetfulness lead to mistakes in the courtroom. Simple tasks cause unexplainable outbursts of anger. Fay’s worst suspicions are realized when she learns her husband—her rock, her love, her everything—is succumbing to the ravages of dementia.

As her husband transforms before her very eyes, Fay copes with her fears by retreating into a fantasy life filled with promise instead of pain. In Fay’s invented world, she imagines herself living a glamorous life free from heartache, with a handsome neighbor she barely knows rescuing her from a future she can’t accept.

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What do you think?  Would you keep reading?

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