Reunion. Therese Fowler

      

      Reunion

      THERESE FOWLER

       Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      AVON

      A division of HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by HarperCollinsPublishers 2008

      Copyright © Therese Fowler 2008

      Therese Fowler asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.

      HarperCollinsPublishers has made every reasonable effort to ensure that any picture content and written content in this ebook has been included or removed in accordance with the contractual and technological constraints in operation at the time of publication

      Source ISBN: 9781847560247

      Ebook Edition © FEBRUARY 2009 ISBN: 9780007287635

      Version: 2018-05-29

      This, my second novel, was so much a labor of love: Love for writing and for telling a story that engaged my imagination so thoroughly; love for my new profession and all the excellent people who publish my work; love for the readers whose responses to my first novel, Souvenir, have humbled me beyond words . . . To those readers I send my most heartfelt thanks.

      Second novels are, they say, the hardest to write. The quandary is in deciding how similar the second book should be to the first. I decided to approach the matter much the way a singer might when selecting which songs to record for a new CD. Listeners don’t want the same song on every track, but they do need to recognize the sound as uniquely that artist’s. Consider this book my track #2, a contemporary, slightly up-tempo offering that I hope will be as captivating as readers and reviewers say the first track is.

      I have to thank my lovely UK editor Maxine Hitchcock, as well as the entire HarperCollins/Avon team, for their faith in my taking this approach.Without Maxine, I would not have UK readers waiting to see whether this book measures up.

      Linda Marrow,my US editor, has earned my unwavering respect, affection, and gratitude for her expert editorial guidance and overall wonderfulness.

      Speaking of wonderful: my agent,Wendy Sherman, is precisely that. She and Jenny Meyer, who handles most of my foreign rights, are an author’s dream team. It’s my good fortune to be in their capable hands.

      I treasure the camaraderie and support of my writing pals, who know better than anyone else the struggles that take place at the keyboard and behind the scenes.

      Most of all, I treasure and thank my enthusiastic family (and not only for the unpaid publicity efforts!). My husband Andrew and our four boys get both the pleasures and the pain of living with a “creative type,” and seem to love me just the same.

      For Andrew, who reminds me that things always turn out pretty much the way they’re supposed to.

      Love to faults is always blind,Always is to joy inclin’d, Lawless, wing’d, and unconfin’d, And Breaks all chains from every mind.

      William Blake

      Contents

       Cover Title Page Copyright Epigraph Prologue Part I Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Part II Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Part III Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Part IV Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Epilogue About