One thing remains constant: He wants his wife back. He takes off on his own journey out west, searching for the answers to all that has gone wrong in his life. Together the two women embark on the most difficult journey of their lives: Joanna struggling for independence, roots, and a future of her own, as her family tugs at her from afar and Grace, choosing to live the remainder of her life for herself alone, knowing she may never see her children again.Įntwined is Paul Harrison's story as he loses his wife, his job, and everything that defines him as a man. She finds a job as a live-in companion to Grace Finelli, a widow who has come to the island to fulfill a girlhood dream. She runs away to Pawleys Island, South Carolina, a place she's been to just once. Panicked at the thought of having to start all over again, Joanna commits the first irresponsible act of her life. Her children are grown and gone, her husband is more married to his job than to her, and now they're about to pack up once more. Īfter more than a dozen moves in twenty-five years of marriage, Joanna Harrison is lonely and tired of being a corporate wife. Sometimes you have to leave your life to find yourself again. Paulette Bates Alden, author of Crossing the Moon and Feeding the Eagles

' The Richest Season is filled with so much honesty and searching and struggle involving three characters whom I grew to love, that I hated to come to the end.' Cassandra King, author of Queen of Broken Hearts and The Same Sweet Girls Maryann McFadden is an exciting new author who writes with compassion, wisdom, and astonishing skill.' 'Set in the fabled landscape of South Carolina's Low Country, The Richest Season takes us on a heartrending journey of discovery. Jacquelyn Mitchard, author of The Deep End of the Ocean and Still Summer

McFadden is out of the gate and on her way.' When they meet, Grace relinquishes her aloof solitude to embrace life at its end, banking on the borrowed courage of a stranger.

Lonely Joanna gives up all she knows for a single chance at all she needs. 'In Maryann McFadden's brave and carefully made novel, The Richest Season, two women set out on open-ended odysseys, one to find her life, one to find meaning in her death.

The Richest Season by Maryann McFadden