SKIPPING A BEAT by Sarah Pekkanen

“A two-hanky weepy in which a 30-something woman must choose between her vast wealth and a husband she hasn’t really loved in years. (Pekkanen) redirects what could have been a predictable romance into a drama on the fragility of love and marriage.”
– Kirkus Reviews

“An insightful examination of a marriage. The moving story and bittersweet ending will draw in readers” - Booklist

“Sarah Pekkanen has done it again. Original, engaging and soulful, SKIPPING A BEAT explores the complexity of marriage and what it really means to share a life. I fell in love with Julia, a funny, flawed and utterly real heroine–and felt the weight of her dilemma with every page, all the way through to the surprising, satisfying finish.”– Emily Giffin, Bestselling author of Something Borrowed

"Pick It Up Now" Book Selection - O, The Oprah Magazine

"In this compelling and satisfying read, Pekkanen offers relatable characters that move you and an ending that surprises and pleases. Highly recommended."
- Library Journal, starred review

What would you do if your husband wanted to rewrite the rules of your relationship?

Julia Dunhill, a thirty-something party planner, seems to have it all: Married to her high school sweetheart and living in a gorgeous home in Washington D.C., she imagines her future unfolding very much as it has for the past few years, since she and her husband Michael successfully launched their companies. There will be dinner parties to attend, operas to dress up for, and weddings and benefits to organize for her growing list of clients. There will be shopping sprees with her best friend, Isabelle, and inevitably those last five pounds to shed. In her darker moments, she worries that her marriage has dissolved from a true partnership into a façade, but she convinces herself it’s due to the intensity of their careers and fast-paced lifestyle.

So as she arranges the molten chocolate cupcakes for the annual Opera benefit, how can she know that her carefully-constructed world is about to fall apart? That her husband will stand up from the head of the table in his company’s boardroom, open his mouth to speak, and crash to the carpeted floor… all in the amount of time it will take her to walk across a ballroom floor just a few miles away. Four minutes and eight seconds after his cardiac arrest, a portable defibrillator jump-starts Michael’s heart. But in those lost minutes he becomes a different man, with an altered perspective on the rarified life they’ve been living and a determination to regain the true intimacy they once shared. Now it is up to Julia to decide — is it worth upending her comfortable world to try to find her way back to the husband she once adored, or should she walk away from this new Michael, who truthfully became a stranger to her long before his change of heart?

Book bloggers are raving about Skipping a Beat:

“One of my top ten for the year”- Bookhounds

“Skipping a Beat has stolen my heart and brought about a whole new appreciation for women’s fiction” – A Cozy Reader’s Corner

“One of my favorite books, ever” – Litfest magazine

“Masterful… I cried multiple times” – ChickLit Plus

“I’ve never read another novel that had the same feel and drew me in as casually and intimately as Skipping a Beat” – NovelEscapes

“Realistic, emotional, and completely irresistible” – Tattered Cover bookstore blog

Published by Washington Square Press, an imprint of Simon & Schuster
ISBN-10: 1451609825