Summary of The Keeper of Happy Endings by Davis Barbara

By Justin Reese

DISCLAIMER

THIS IS NOT WRITTEN BY Davis Barbara

IT IS AN INDEPENDENT PUBLICATION BY Justin Reese

 

An enchanting novel about fate, second chances, and hope, lost and found, by the Amazon Charts bestselling author of The Last of the Moon Girls.

When Rory Grant discovers a box containing letters and a vintage wedding dress, never worn, eerie parallels in Rory's and Soline's lives begin to surface.

• Language: English
• Publisher: jUSTIN REESE
• Release date: Nov 5, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201654818

Book preview

FOURTEEN SOLINE

FIFTEEN SOLINE

SIXTEEN RORY

SEVENTEEN RORY

EIGHTEEN SOLINE

NINETEEN SOLINE

TWENTY SOLINE

TWENTY-ONE SOLINE

TWENTY-TWO SOLINE

TWENTY-THREE RORY

TWENTY-FOUR RORY

TWENTY-FIVE SOLINE

TWENTY-SIX SOLINE

TWENTY-SEVEN SOLINE

TWENTY-EIGHT SOLINE

TWENTY-NINE SOLINE

THIRTY RORY

THIRTY-ONE SOLINE

THIRTY-TWO RORY

THIRTY-THREE RORY

THIRTY-FOUR SOLINE

THIRTY-FIVE RORY

THIRTY-SIX RORY

THIRTY-SEVEN RORY

THIRTY-EIGHT RORY

THIRTY-NINE RORY

FORTY RORY

FORTY-ONE SOLINE

FORTY-TWO RORY

FORTY-THREE RORY

FORTY-FOUR SOLINE FORTY-FIVE SOLINE

FORTY-SIX SOLINE

FORTY-SEVEN SOLINE

FORTY-EIGHT RORY

EPILOGUE SOLINE

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

BOOK CLUB QUESTIONS

PROLOGUE

SOLINE

Faith is the essential ingredient. If one loses faith in la magie, one has lost everything.

—Esmée Roussel, the Dress Witch

13 September 1976—Boston

I have always grieved the ends of things. The final notes of a song as they ebb into silence. The curtain falling at the end of a play. The last snowflake. They all seem so long ago now, and yet the collective rawness still chafes.

Still, I find myself drawn to those scars, a map of wounds that takes me neither forward nor back. For the first time, I lift up Anson's shaving case and inhale his scent, yearning for a whiff of him. For thirty years I've been lifting this empty bottle to my nose, taking comfort in his scent. And now even that is gone. I return the shaving case to the box, then fold the dress and lay it inside, arranging the sleeves tenderly across the bodice like a funeral.

ONE

RORY

May 26, 1985—Boston

––––––––

Rory had never been a fan of romance novels, but now she couldn't devour them fast enough. Kathleen Woodiwiss's A Rose in Winter, finished last night around 4:00 a.m., splayed open at her feet. She'd meant to tidy up after dinner, but then Random Harvest came on and she hadn't been able to tear herself away until Greer Garson and Ronald Colman were reunited. Thirty-three envelopes addressed in his thin, sprawling script waited for her at Tufts University in Boston. The first had arrived in her mailbox just five hours after his flight left Logan, to make sure it arrived on the right day.

They'd come nearly every day at first before leveling off to one or two a week. And then they'd simply stopped coming. After graduating medical school, he signed up with Doctors Without Borders to provide medical care for children in need in South Sudan. He wrote letters to his mom about how hard the work was, but how it was making him a better doctor. The US confirmed that a band of armed rebels had abducted three workers in an early-morning raid in South Sudan. According to the State Department, every resource was being brought to bear, every lead being followed, not that there'd been many.

TWO

RORY  

Rory's mother's house was immaculate, a study in monied good taste with its plush beige carpets and carefully matched furniture. It had looked like this even when she was little, thanks to her mother's militant rules about cleanliness. She found her mother in the kitchen, pouring fresh-squeezed orange juice into a cut-glass pitcher, her signature gold charm bracelet tinkling as she worked. Camilla's mother, Camilla Lowell Grant, was one of Boston's most prominent social and philanthropic elites. Camilla's daily Sunday Brunch tradition began on her twelfth birthday and had quickly become a weekly event.

She adored the city with all its contradictions, its rich colonial history and vibrant melting-pot culture. But there was something about seeing it like this, away from the bustle and noise, that had always made her feel a little magical. Hux and Camilla were having brunch at Camilla's restaurant, which was meant to be a time for catching up, but lately had become increasingly tense. Hux fingered the ruby ring on her left hand, a small oval with a tiny nick at the bottom. It was the ring her father had used to propose to his mother, all he'd been able to afford as a soldier returning from the Korean War.

The affair with his receptionist was the crown jewel in her collection of betrayals, a badge of honor purchased with her pride. Let me have that before you take out someone's eye, Camilla says as she opens a champagne flute. Rory looked up from her mimosa and said, I'm not excited about anything. What a thing to say. Camilla went still, her face frozen, as if she'd received a slap she hadn't seen coming. I'm sorry. I was just lashing out and you got in the way, Rory said, embarrassed by her outburst.

She looked at her mother, so cool and well groomed, unflappable. You have no idea what that's like, do you?