Everything changed when Kara Larson's mother died. At nine years old, Kara couldn't understand how her family, once so strong, could shatter so completely. Her sister cried herself to sleep every night, her brother threw himself into life outside the house, and their father became a stern, uncompromising shell of the happy man he'd once been. A second devastating loss, her abandonment by Jack Sullivan, the boy next door, convinces young Kara that love -- at least the kind that strikes like lightning -- is an illusion.

Now at 27, Kara is sure she has it all figured out -- real love, the kind that's stable and secure, with a professional golfer of whom her father approves. Dad also approves of the Palmetto Pointe Junior Society -- so to secure membership, Kara takes time out from planning her wedding to visit Maeve Mahoney, a resident at a nursing home facility. Through her unlikely friendship with this charming Irish storyteller, and the tale of the 96-year- old's first love, Kara is moved to reconsider the lessons of her own past. And when Jack Sullivan returns to Palmetto Pointe, Kara is forced to face the truth about family, loss, lifelong dreams and, most importantly, love.

Patti Callahan Henry has been compared to every Southern writer, from Anne Rivers Siddons to Pat Conroy. She writes the kind of books the term "lyrical" was coined to describe, and WHEN LIGHT BREAKS is no exception. Characters quote Yeats and talk about matters of the heart, and lush imagery calls the reader to a sandy stretch of South Carolina Lowcountry beach, sun overhead and waves pounding in the background. It's Southern Comfort, straight up, no twist.