50 in 2012: Book Forty Two

Skipping a Beat by Sarah Pekkanen

My rating: 2 of 5 stars

“When my husband, Michael, died for the first time, I was walking across a freshly waxed marble floor in three-inch Stuart Weitzman heels, balancing a tray of cupcakes in my shaking hands.”

A husband and wife: involved in successful careers, gorgeous house, fashionable clothes, high school sweethearts…all is seemingly perfect, except that nothing really is.

Michael’s financial success has brought them a lifestyle neither of them ever imagined they’d have: lavish parties, expensive clothes, and huge house. Julia never thought she wanted all of that, never thought she’d depend on all of that, never thought in a million years that it would all disappear.

Michael suffers a massive heart attack, medically “dead” for minutes before he is revived. When he comes to, he is not the Michael Julia fell in love with. He is not the driven man she once knew. Instead, he insists that he no longer cares about money, no longer wants to live the life he was living, no longer wants any of his money. He proceeds to quit his job and give away his millions of dollars in savings.

As Michael and Julia both struggle to come to terms with their new reality, past indiscretions come to head and they both must decide what they truly want. Neither of them have been perfect, both have made mistakes but are some mistakes unforgivable? What are they willing to do to uphold promises made?

Meh book, amazing ending. One that still makes me shudder..
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