Paradise Girls: A Novel

Description

It's Christmas time, and Mary Valley is in a funk. She's a writer for home magazines, but she's lost touch with what home means. Her life seems meaningless. The last house she wrote about was a gazillion-dollar mansion with a moat! Plus, she's estranged from her daughter, CC and granddaughter, Larkin and mired in a dead-end relationship with her boss. Daniel is a man adrift since his son Timmy was killed in Afghanistan. He's living on a houseboat in Florida with Timmy's three-legged dog, Tripod and taking tourists out on fishing charters. But his life is on the edge. He's painting his houseboat black, and he can't stop thinking about "getting lost at sea." When Mary's boss tells her he's spending Christmas with his ex, she books a trip with her family to The Low Key Inn, a hotel on the edge of the Everglades. But things go wrong from the get-go. CC bails out of the vacation, and Mary is stuck with an unhappy Larkin. The hotel is dated and down-on-its-luck, and perhaps its owner is a witch. Then Mary meets Daniel, casts a hook into his head and wrecks his boat. This is the story of how wounded people can help each other heal, how lost people can help each other find their way home. How life can become a love story.

SANDY GINGRAS is the author and illustrator of twenty-five gift books. She's also published fiction, poetry and narrative non-fiction, and she won the Debut Dagger Award for mystery writing in 2012. She's designed hundreds of products for national stationery companies and owns two retail stores of her own. She lives on an island six miles out to sea in a happy cottage on the bay with her husband and a dog named Turtle.

Sure to please. - Publishers Weekly The Paradise Girls is a heavenly book, wise and funny, surprising, realistic, and a joy to read from the first page to the last. I recommend this book, heart and soul! - Nancy Thayer, New York Times bestselling author of Family Reunion How I loved this book! Both breezy and deep, it swept me away to a land of beaches and mangrove islands, broken-hearted tour leaders and eccentrics, and a woman trying desperately to find her new life. I wish I could run away to the Low Key Motel right now. You will, too. Barbara O'Neal, Washington Post bestselling author of When We Believed in Mermaids Ms. Gingras uses the balm of human connection to soothe her touchingly fallible characters, leaving both them and the reader hopeful for the future. A deeply human, touching and beautiful novel. --Abbi Waxman, USA Today bestselling author of The Bookish Life of Nina Hill This is the book your heart needs. Mary's journey to reclaim joy from disappointment is not only rollicking entertainment; it's a testament to the buoyancy of the human spirit. Her irrepressible resilience will inspire her legions of new fans. --Susan Wiggs, #1 New York Times bestselling author "As warm and bright as a perfect ocean day, Sandy Gingras's new novel is a confection of dreamy destinations and second-chance joy that swept me up and carried me away. Her charming characters wiggled their way into my heart one after the other, until I was cheering for each and every one--especially a very special dog and his strong, silent owner. Ethereal and enchanting, The Paradise Girls is pure beach delight!" - Kelly Harms, bestselling author of The Overdue Life of Amy Blyer and The Seven Day Switch "Paradise Girls is so much more than your typical beach read. Sandy Gingras' tightly written debut has important lessons at its charming core: We become our best selves again when we go on vacation, we often have to get lost to rediscover who we were meant to be and starting over is scary but ultimately can make our lives even more beautiful than a sunset over the ocean." --Viola Shipman, bestselling author of The Clover Girls and The Secret of Snow