Synopses & Reviews
Tess Dyer is in pain. It's not the kind of pain she can see and smell and wrap with an ace bandage. It's the kind she tries to numb with sex and work and cleaning-cleaning-cleaning the house. The kind that comes from enduring a lifetime of rejection. First from her mother ? whom Tess knows would have aborted her had the law allowed it ? then from a string of men whose names she can never remember. And finally, at age thirty-four, from her husband of ten years; the man who once promised to love her forever.Now her divorce is final. She trudges out of one small Maine town and into an even smaller one. There she meets twenty-five-year-old Brian LaChance. He is struggling to keep Rachel, the sister he raised, from becoming another victim of the drug problem that infests their impoverished town. Brian is immediately drawn to Tess's quirky, outspoken nature, and to the beauty he sees in the haunting pictures she paints. Her own initial attraction to him is purely physical; just a warm, young body to help her mask the pain. Soon, though, she comes to admire his kindness and strength, and reluctantly allows herself to fall in love with him. But the fear of losing it is always there. Because Tess has heard the promise of forever before and now she knows that there's no such thing. And when her ex-husband, Jason, pays an unexpected visit, his cruel, taunting remarks make Brian wonder whether her feelings for him are genuine. Whether they go any deeper than just sex after all.Meanwhile, Rachel begins a relationship with an abusive drug dealer and dives head-first into the dangerous world of addiction. As his sister's life spirals out of control, Brian is unable to cope with his guilt and grief, and Tess is unable to comfort him because she has finally found a pain that sex will not bury. A pain that uncovers her own barely-suppressed feelings of worthlessness, and forces her to make a choice: continue wandering through life, drifting and numb, or confront her past and start living?for real.
Synopsis
Tess Dyer's husband, Jason, promised to love her forever. That was eleven years ago, before the fights, before the pain, before the bitter divorce. Now he is just another in a long line of people who rejected Tess, from her coldly distant mother to the seemingly endless string of one-night stands from her youth whose names she can't remember.
Desperate to escape the pain of the past, Tess flees her small Maine hometown of Brookfield for the even smaller New Mills. There, she hopes to start over and forget what she left behind...with the help, perhaps, of her handsome new neighbor, Brian. He is drawn to Tess's quirky, outspoken nature, and to the beauty he sees in her haunting paintings. She tells herself he is just a warm young body to help mask the pain, though his kindness and his affection for his troubled sister are having quite an effect on her bruised heart.
But the fear of losing his love is always there, and when a man from her past unexpectedly shows up, Tess's personal demons threaten to destroy the fragile happiness she has found with Brian. Ultimately, she must make a choice: continue wandering through life, drifting and numb, or confront the cruel realities of her past once and for all and finally start living.
Synopsis
The pain in Tess Dyer's heart stems from a lifetime of rejection: by her distant mother, by a string of one-night stands, and by her husband, Jason. He promised to love her forever, yet here she is, divorced and shunned in her own town. She tries everything to dull the pain: sex, work, and endlessly cleaning the house. Finally, in a fit of despair, she abandons the small town of Brookfield, Maine, for an even smaller town, determined to start over with a clean slate. But she can't run from the demons in her head, and she soon falls back on her old habits, this time with the help of her sexy new neighbor Brian. Though she tells herself he is just a warm body to dull the pain, his kindness has a soothing effect on her bruised heart. But the fear of losing his love is always there, and before long, Tess's past threatens to destroy her fragile new happiness. Ultimately, she must make a choice: continue drifting through life, or confront the cruel realities of her past and start living. A dramatic departure from contemporary chick-lit, Waiting for Spring is a moving novel about a real woman struggling to find her place in the world.