Those We Love Most

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"Lee Woodruff knows how to get to the heart of the matter on every occasion."--Alice Hoffman A bright June day. A split-second distraction. A family forever changed.Life is good for Maura Corrigan. Married to her college sweetheart, Pete, raising three young kids with her parents nearby in her peaceful Chicago suburb, her world is secure. Then one day, in a single turn of fate, that entire world comes crashing down and everything that she thought she knew changes.Maura must learn to move forward with the weight of grief and the crushing guilt of an unforgivable secret. Pete senses a gap growing between him and his wife but finds it easier to escape to the bar with his friends than face the flaws in his marriage.Meanwhile, Maura's parents are dealing with the fault lines in their own marriage. Charismatic Roger, who at sixty-five, is still chasing the next business deal and Margaret, a pragmatic and proud homemaker, have been married for four decades, seemingly happily. But the truth is more complicated. Like Maura, Roger has secrets of his own and when his deceptions and weaknesses are exposed, Margaret's love and loyalty face the ultimate test.Those We Love Most chronicles how these unforgettable characters confront their choices, examine their mistakes, fight for their most valuable relationships, and ultimately find their way back to each other. It takes us deep into the heart of what makes families and marriages tick and explores a fundamental question: when the ties that bind us to those we love are strained or broken, how do we pick up the pieces?Deeply penetrating and brimming with emotional insight, this engrossing family drama heralds the arrival of a major new voice in contemporary fiction.Praise for Those We Love Most:"Lee Woodruff has written a beautiful, humorous, poignant page-turner about the complexities of love and marriage, tricky family dynamics, and the power of the human heart. Everything you want in a great read is here, including wonderful storytelling that builds to a satisfying ending. Loved it."--Adriana Trigiani "Those We Love Most is an engrossing story about family fragility, rupture, and redemption. Woodruff's beautiful and unflinching portrayal of the grief, betrayal, guilt, tenacity, and love that engulf this family in the aftermath of a devastating tragedy will keep you turning pages till the end."--Sue Monk Kidd"Flawless, breathtaking, and oh-so-real, Those We Love Most is a beautifully written book about family, love, betrayal, forgiveness, and how we pick up the pieces in the wake of unthinkable tragedy. When I turned the last page, I found myself missing the characters already. I can’t recommend this book highly enough. "--Harlan Coben"Those We Love Most is a poignant, heartwarming story that follows you beyond its pages. Woodruff skillfully makes the Corrigan family real--fallible and vulnerable, ultimately strengthened by the undeniable power of love. I grieved and cheered for them all, and finished the book with a big smile on my face."--Catherine Coulter"I opened Those We Love Most when my plane took off from Boston, and didn't look up again until I landed in Miami. In between, I cried and smiled and nodded, and turned pages faster and faster. It's one of those novels."--Ann HoodFrom BooklistWoodruff, who is married to Bob Woodruff, the newsman who suffered a traumatic brain injury while covering the war in Iraq, brings her own experience in dealing with sudden tragedy to bear in her first novel (after Perfectly Imperfect, 2009, a collection of essays). Maura Corrigan’s settled suburban life changes in an instant when her eldest son, nine-year-old James, is hit by a car. Reeling from a welter of emotions, including guilt that she was texting instead of keeping an eye on her son, Maura feels too overwhelmed to try to deal with the distance in her marriage as her husband copes with the tragedy by spending evenings at the local watering hole with his college chums. Meanwhile, her parents must confront the rift in their own marriage when evidence of her father’s years-long affair comes to light. Woodruff is surprisingly subtle in her nuanced portraits of the complexity of marriage, the far from well-intentioned people who seem to thrive on tragedy, and the great struggle to find meaning in life. Candid and heartfelt, this is sure to please fans of women’s fiction. --Joanne Wilkinson