Patricia Curren’s search for independence begins in the summer of 1978, when she finds an unfamiliar black pearl button in the bed she shares with her controlling husband, Jack. When the chance arises for her to escape to Kiawah Island in the South Carolina Lowcountry for the season, she settles in for solitude and self-discovery. But an impulsive decision to take a tennis lesson from Terry Sloan, a collegiate player trying to turn pro, sends her summer top-spinning toward danger.
Patricia and Terry are an unlikely pairing. She is quiet and scholarly, buried in beloved books. He is competitive, sometimes brash, and severely dyslexic. But they find in each other the courage to overcome the crippling insecurities that have plagued them since childhood, and their summer fling begins a slow burn to obsession and love that can’t let go. When their affair is discovered by single, career-minded Lynn Hewitt, Jack’s assistant and Patricia’s closest confidant, it takes every bit of strategy and strength Lynn possesses to hold things together, as she struggles to protect them all from impending disaster come Labor Day—when Jack expects Patricia to return to their life together in New York City.
In Breaking and Holding as long-held secrets are finally revealed, advantages shift from one player to another and new alliances are formed in a match that holds you breathless until the very end.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
The idea for Judy Fogarty’s debut novel, Breaking and Holding, took root many years ago, when Judy’s love for the game of tennis first blossomed during those heady days of rivalry between Jimmy Connors, Bjorn Borg and John McEnroe. With tennis, she fell hard not only for the athleticism and competition but also for the language of the sport—love, fault, double fault, break, hold—words that lent themselves ideally to a story of obsession, betrayal and, ultimately, triumph.
The dramatic arc of tennis mirrored the passionate play of classical music that Judy studied at the University of Illinois, where she earned a Master of Music degree in Vocal Performance and Literature. It led her to work as a marketing director for private golf and tennis communities, including The Landings on Skidaway Island in her native Savannah, Georgia, and Berkeley Hall and Callawassie Island in the Hilton Head, South Carolina area. A devoted—some might say, “rowdy,”—tennis fan, she lives, writes, reads and runs on the historic Isle of Hope in Savannah. She is happily at work on her second novel and enjoys the invaluable support of her husband, Mike, and children, Colin and Sara Jane.
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Author website: www.judyfogarty.com
Twitter: @judyfogarty
On Sale: August 2, 2016
Publisher: Lake Union Publishing
Available in: Paperback, $10.55;
ISBN-13: 978-1503936713
ISBN-10: 150393671
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