On Mystic Lake

Book excerpt: NATIONAL BESTSELLER • A poignant and tender story of love, loss, passion, and the fragile threads that bind families together from the author of The Nightingale. “A beautifully simple, deeply compassionate story.”—Diana Gabaldon Annie Colwater's only child has just left home for school abroad. On that same day, her husband of twenty years confesses that he's in love with a younger woman. Alone in the house that is no longer a home, Annie comes to the painful realization that for years she has been slowly disappearing. Lonely and afraid, she retreats to Mystic, the small Washington town where she grew up, hoping that there she can reclaim the woman she once was—the woman she is now desperate to become again. In Mystic, she is reunited with her first love, Nick Delacroix, a recent widower unable to cope with his grieving, too-silent six-year-old daughter, Izzie. Together, the three of them begin to heal, and, at last, Annie learns that she can love without losing herself. But just when she has found a second chance at happiness, her life is turned upside down again, and Annie must make a choice no woman should have to make. . . . Praise for On Mystic Lake “Marvelous . . . a touching love story . . . You know a book is a winner when you devour it in one evening and hope there’s a sequel. . . . This page-turner has enough twists and turns to keep the reader up until the wee hours of the morning.”—USA Today “Superb . . . I’ll heartily recommend On Mystic Lake to any woman . . . who demands that a story leave her in a satisfied glow.”—The Washington Post Book World “A luminescent story . . . Kristin Hannah touches the deepest, most tender corners of our hearts.”—Tami Hoag “Excellent . . . On Mystic Lake is an emotional experience you won’t soon forget.”—Rocky Mountain News “Propels readers forward to the final chapter.”—The Seattle Times