Anna Geneva, the high-powered attorney on the verge of a partnership, thought she'd be happy with the success she's gained but never thought she'd be enjoying it alone.
Cami Drayon, daughter of the town auto repairmanβ and town drunkβ thought she'd be tutoring children somewhere, anywhere but where her father lives.
Maeve Geneva, Anna's mother and proprietor of the Nee Nance store, thought she'd be living her dream romance with her dream manβ until he walked out on her and Anna.
Amy Rickart thought her happiness lay in being thin and beautifulβ after years of being overweightβ and preparing to marry the perfect man.
They thought wrong.
Kristina Riggle writes a thought-provoking tale that illuminates how childhood dreams and young adult desires, some twenty years later, can easily turn out to be other than imagined. She also explores what it takes, in terms of self-acceptance, courage, and determination, to reach beyond the life one is living to live the life one wants.
Initially, I was drawn to Maeve's story, a woman whose soul mate abandoned her but has now reappeared. I love romance, so naturally I wondered whether they would finally find their happy ending. But, as the novel continued to unfold, it was difficult not to also be drawn to Anna, Maeve's daughter, who comes across initially as uptight and unapproachable, but reveals herself in the end to have the biggest heart. Even as these woman scrap and struggle to paint a new paradigm for happiness in their lives, they each make mistakes; mistakes that not everyone will understand nor be willing to forgive. Their mistakes, however, make them that much more human, that much more like the rest of us who at one time or another question the lives we find ourselves living.
The characters of Amy, and especially Cami, serve their purpose, but this is definitely Anna and Maeve's story. It is a story about mothers and daughters, about how they don't always condone or support each other's choices, often because they lack understanding and maybe empathy for the other's dreams, and more importantly, their fears. I was as much interested in a happy ending for Maeve and Anna's relationship as I was for their relationships with the men in their lives. Not all of the women experience classic happy endings, but they get the endings they truly want and deserve.
Is the life you're living all you imagined? Have you ever
asked yourself, "What if??" Here, four women face the
decisions of their lifetimes in this stirring and
unforgettable novel of love, loss, friendship, and family.
Anna Geneva, a Chicago attorney coping with the death of a
cherished friend, returns to her "speck on the map"
hometown of Haven to finally come to terms with her
mother, the man she left behind, and the road she did not
take. Cami Drayton, Anna's dearest friend from high
school, is coming home too, forced by circumstance to move
in with her alcoholic father . . . and to confront a dark
family secret. Maeve, Anna's mother, never left Haven,
firmly rooted there by her sadness over her abandonment by
the husband she desperately loved and the hope that
someday he will return to her. And Amy Rickartβthin,
beautiful, and striving for perfectionβfaces a future with
the perfect man . . . but is haunted by the memory of what
she used to be. Kristina Riggle's The Life You've Imagined
takes a provocative look at the choices we makeβand the
courage we must have to change.
No excerpt available.
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