ARC Arrival: Off Season

Off Season by Anne Rivers Siddons

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing/Hachette Books

I received this book from Valerie at Hachette. Thanks Valerie!

About the book: For as long as she can remember, they were Cam and Lilly - happily married, totally in love with each other, parents of a beautiful family, and partners in life. Then, after decades of marriage, it ended as every great love story does. . . in loss.

After Cam's death, Lilly takes a solitary road trip to her and Cam's favorite spot on the wild coast of Maine, the place where they fell in love, and where their ghosts still dance. There she looks hard to her past - to a first love that ended in tragedy; to falling in love with Cam; to a marriage filled with exuberance, sheer life, and safety - to try to make sense of her future. It is a journey that begins with tender memories and culminates in a revelation that will make Lilly reevaluate everything she thought was true about her husband and her marriage. A story about those simple truths that often elude us, even when they are in front of our eyes, Off Season explores the hidden places of the heart that continually surprise us. (from the back cover)

About the author: Born in 1936 in a small town near Atlanta, Anne Rivers Siddons was raised to be a dutiful daughter of the South -- popular, well-mannered, studious, and observant of all the cultural mores of time and place. She attended Alabama's Auburn University in the mid-1950s, just as the Civil Rights Movement was gathering steam. Siddons worked on the staff of Auburn's student newspaper and wrote an editorial in favor of integration. When the administration asked her to pull the piece, she refused. The column ran with an official disclaimer from the university, attracting national attention and giving young Siddons her first taste of the power of the written word.

After a brief stint in the advertising department of a bank, Siddons took a position with the up and coming regional magazine Atlanta, where she worked her way up to senior editor. Impressed by her writing ability, an editor at Doubleday offered her a two-book contract. She debuted in 1975 with a collection of nonfiction essays; the following year, she published Heartbreak Hotel, a semi-autobiographical novel about a privileged Southern coed who comes of age during the summer of 1956.

With the notable exception of 1978's The House Next Door, a chilling contemporary gothic compared by Stephen King to Shirley Jackson's classic horror novel The Haunting of Hill House, Siddons has produced a string of well-written, imaginative, and emotionally resonant stories of love and loss -- all firmly rooted in the culture of the modern South. Her books are consistent bestsellers, with 1988's Peachtree Road (1988) arguably her biggest commercial success. Described by her friend and peer, Pat Conroy, as "the Southern novel for our generation," the book sheds illuminating light on the changing landscape of mid-20th-century Atlanta society.

Although her status as a "regional" writer accounts partially for Siddons' appeal, ultimately fans love her books because they portray with compassion and truth the real lives of women who transcend the difficulties of love and marriage, family, friendship, and growing up. (from Barnes and Noble)

Off Season
Publisher/Publication Date: Grand Central Publishing, July 2009
ISBN: 978-0-446-69829-0
384 pages

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