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By Accident
By Accident
By Accident
Ebook241 pages3 hours

By Accident

Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars

3.5/5

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A grieving mother finds solace from her son’s death in a relationship that quickly blurs the line between friendship and intimacy.

By Accident portrays a year in the life of a woman after the accidental death of her teenage son. Laura Lucas is numbed by the loss, a loss that is paralleled in the spate of upscale construction—and attendant destruction—in her starter-home neighborhood. It’s about Laura's relationship with a young tree surgeon who slowly becomes a replacement for her son—but also an object of desire.

The story reveals the delicate nexus where solace becomes sex; the role of men and women as unmarried friends; and examines grief in a marriage. It portrays the pain of change and the poignancy of acceptance through Laura's eyes, and occasionally, through the quirky outlook of her ten-year-old daughter. And before the story ends, another brutal, random accident will redefine Laura's life once again.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherPegasus Books
Release dateSep 1, 2011
ISBN9781681770154
By Accident

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Rating: 3.6666666666666665 out of 5 stars
3.5/5

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  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Laura Lucas is grieving the death of her son, who should have been college bound in the fall. She grieves as an island - isolated and disconnected from everything and everyone she used to love. Then she and her daughter, Ebie, meet the young man next door and Laura begins to show signs of life again. By Accident examines relationships between men and women, husbands and wives, parents and children.By Accident is beautifully written. I could feel the heaviness of Laura's grief and her frustration with her husband as he tried to force her out of it. I understood her anger at the construction happening in her neighborhood. The changes are happening too quickly and she is unable to hold on to what once was and what should have been.Relationships are at the heart of the story. Laura and her husband go in different directions after their son's death. Russ and his business partner go in different directions as well, in part causing Laura to lose her best friend of many years. New relationships develop when Elliot moves in next door. Lines are drawn in the sand, crossed, and redrawn as the characters try to find their place in a world that keeps shifting under their feet and throwing them off balance.I loved the beginning of the book and felt that it ended exactly how it should have. There were a few things in the latter half that bothered me but it was only because I didn't want the characters to make those choices, even though I saw how they got there and how those choices led to the ending. I think the chapters in Ebie's voice were a wonderful break from Laura's heavy grief and gave a different perspective to the story.
  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    I thought By Accident was a lovely telling of a tragic situation, with such honesty and detail I felt the characters emotions myself. I thought it was realistic, honest, emotional and well written. I loved the ending, and the intermittent chapters told from a different point of view than the main character's first person point of view. I will look for other books by this author to read based on my experience with this book.
  • Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
    3/5
    Solid story

Book preview

By Accident - Susan Kelly

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