Skipping a Beat, Sarah Pekkanen
Skipping a Beat, Sarah Pekkanen
4 Rating(s)
List: $25.99 | Sale: $18.20
Club: $12.99

Skipping a Beat

Author: Sarah Pekkanen

Narrator: Madeleine Maby

Unabridged: 9 hr 36 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 12/17/2013

Categories: Fiction, Family Life, Women


Synopsis

From the author of the acclaimed The Opposite of Me, a poignant, witty novel about marriage, forgiveness, and the choices that give shape—and limits—to our lives.

From the outside, Julia and Michael seem to have it all. Both products of difficult childhoods in rural West Virginia—where they were simply Julie and Mike—they become high school sweethearts and fall in love. Shortly after graduation, they flee their small town to start afresh. Now thirty-somethings, they are living a rarified life in their multi-million-dollar, Washington D.C. home. Julia is a highly sought-after party planner, while Michael has just sold his wildly successful flavored water company for $70 million.

But one day, Michael collapses in his office. Four minutes and eight seconds after his cardiac arrest, a portable defibrillator jump-starts his heart. But in those lost minutes he becomes a different man. Money is meaningless to him—and he wants to give it all away. Julia, who sees bits of her life reflected in scenes from the world’s great operas, is now facing with a choice she never anticipated. Should she should walk away from the man she once adored—but who truthfully became a stranger to her long before this pronouncement—or give in to her husband's pleas for a second chance and a promise of a poorer but happier life?

As wry and engaging as her debut, but with quiet depth and newfound maturity, Skipping a Beat is an unforgettable portrait of a marriage whose glamorous surface belies the complications and betrayals beneath.

About Sarah Pekkanen

Sarah Pekkanen is the bestselling author of The Ever After, The Opposite of Me, Skipping a Beat, These Girls, The Best of Us, Catching Air, Things You Won’t Say, and The Perfect Neighbors. Her work has been published in People, The Washington Post, and USA TODAY, among other publications. She lives with her family in Chevy Chase, Maryland.


Reviews

Goodreads review by CoffeeBook on January 13, 2012

I've been reading books that are making me bawl my eyes out lately, and this one did the job exceedingly well. Sarah Pekkanen fleshed out real people in an effortlessly convincing way, and has a fierce heart-tugging story line to go along with them. Julia and Michael are high school sweethearts from......more

Goodreads review by Amy on April 26, 2011

High-school sweethearts Julie & Michael have left behind their small town and are in pursuit of living a life better than their modest upbringings and achieving the American dream. When Michael decides to start a sports drink company, neither of them could ever expect how quickly his business would......more

Goodreads review by Dion on June 01, 2017

Não foi um dos melhores livros que li este ano, no entanto, aborda um tema que considero de extrema importância: as prioridades na vida! O que é mais importante: trabalhar horas a fio e ganhar muito dinheiro, ou estar presente para aqueles que amamos? O amor ganha, mas alguns só se dão conta disso t......more

Goodreads review by Danielle on February 19, 2011

What happens when life gives you an opportunity to fall in love all over again with your first love? Do you take it? Or do years of resentment and distance make it too painful to go back? These are the exact questions Julia faces when her multi-million dollar husband suddenly dies in the middle of a......more

Goodreads review by Christie on July 20, 2011

Wow, this was quite the book. I wanted to bawl my eyes out at the end, but at the same time I knew the book had to end the way it did. Sigh. Skipping a Beat had me thinking all through my sleep and into the next day. A wonderful read and I'd recommend this to anyone!......more