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Coast Road [Abridged, Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Barbara Delinsky (Author), Howard McGillin (Reader)
4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)


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Book Description

July 1, 1998

Coast Road. Where life's greatest gifts come to us by accident.

Rachel Keats and Jack McGill were artists, deeply in love when they married, until the rush of life took its toll. After ten years of marriage, they divorced and went their separate ways. Jack stayed in San Francisco. Rachel moved with their two young daughters to Big Sur.

Six years later, an alarming middle-of-the-night phone call demands that Jack put aside his own busy life and career as a leading architect to rush to his ex-wife's hospital bed. While she lies lifeless, Jack maintains a bedside vigil and finds himself getting to know Rachel better than he ever did -- through their daughters, her friends, and, even more revealingly, through her art. Meanwhile, the beauty and grace of the redwood canyon where she has made their home also work their own special alchemy upon Jack. He begins to see Rachel, his daughters, and the story of his marriage with new eyes.

Coast Road celebrates those things in life that matter most -- the kinship of neighbors, the companionship of friends, and the irreplaceable time spent with children and family. In this masterful new novel, Barbara Delinsky depicts with exquisite accuracy the ties that bind each of us to those people and places we hold most dear.


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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In the famed romantic tradition that only Barbara Delinsky can deliver, you'll meet emotion-packed characters who make you forget whatever it was you were doing before you picked up Coast Road. In this story, workaholic Jack McGill is brought to his knees when he learns that his ex-wife Rachel is in a coma after a car accident. When he rushes to her side to be a dutiful father to his children, he is met with abrasive verbal abuse not only from his children, but also from Rachel's best friends.

By the time the doctors tell him they don't know how long Rachel will be in the coma, Jack has reacquainted himself with his children, and fond memories have surfaced of his ex-wife and her creative artistic talent. Through Rachel's best friend, Katherine, Jack learns about a secret Rachel had hidden from him during the days they were married. The secret, revealed through artwork, is one of the many factors that thrust Jack into "introspection mode." He reevaluates his life, digging deep into his heart's desires, and decides to quit his job and stay at Rachel's side, even if she never wakes up.

Coast Road deals with some very difficult subjects, such as miscarriage, divorce, traveling husbands, breast cancer, and the ramifications of living in a coma. However, once you get past the research exposition and the bantering, you'll laugh and cry (a lot) at what this once-separated family goes through. Delinsky paints vivid pictures of Rachel, who remains in a coma for about 99 percent of the book, but you'll see that it sometimes takes a life-threatening accident to rekindle the fires of love. --Candy Paape --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

Set in Big Sur, Calif., Delinsky's latest contemporary romance (after Three Wishes) sings the praises of family and friendship. Rachel Keats, outdoorsy artist, mother of two and ex-wife of architect Jack McGill, is in a coma after a car crash on her way to a book-club meeting. When Jack hears the news in a late-night phone call from Rachel's best friend, flinty Katherine Evans, he puts aside pressing business obligations in San Francisco and rushes to her side. Rachel shows no sign of waking up soon, so Jack moves into her house to take care of their daughters, 15-year-old Samantha and 13-year-old Hope. Meanwhile, Jack keeps slipping into flashback memories of his life with Rachel but can't seem to figure out why she left him six years earlier. Luckily, Katherine is there to give him the answers: Jack is selfish, uncommunicative and materialistic. As Jack gets to know Rachel's life, her friends and the family she has made, he realizes Katherine is right and resolves to show Rachel he's changedAif only she'll wake up. Sexual stereotypes fuel this predictable saga, and the wait for Rachel's recovery can't sustain tension in the plot. Samantha's wild teenaged antics and the early, prickly stages of a romance between Katherine and Rachel's neurologist lend the only doses of excitement to a story that's stretched far too thin.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

  • Audio Cassette
  • Publisher: Audioworks; Abridged edition (July 1, 1998)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0671582208
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671582203
  • Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.6 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (95 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,715,057 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Barbara Delinsky, author of ESCAPE (2011), NOT MY DAUGHTER (2010), WHILE MY SISTER SLEEPS (2009), THE SECRET BETWEEN US (2008), and FAMILY TREE (2007), has written more than twenty bestselling novels with over thirty million copies in print. She has been published in twenty languages worldwide. Barbara's fiction centers upon everyday families facing not-so-everyday challenges. She is particularly drawn to exploring themes of motherhood, marriage, sibling rivalry, and friendship in her novels.

A lifelong New Englander, Barbara earned a B.A. in Psychology at Tufts University and an M.A. in Sociology at Boston College. As a breast cancer survivor who lost her mother to the disease when she was only eight, Barbara compiled the non-fiction book Uplift: Secrets From the Sisterhood of Breast Cancer Survivors, a handbook of practical tips and upbeat anecdotes. She donates her proceeds from the sale of this book to her charitable foundation, which funds an ongoing research fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital.

Barbara enjoys knitting, photography, and cats. She also loves to interact with her readers through her website at www.barbaradelinsky.com, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/bdelinsky, and on Twitter as @BarbaraDelinsky.

 

Customer Reviews

95 Reviews
5 star:
 (54)
4 star:
 (25)
3 star:
 (7)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (3)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.3 out of 5 stars (95 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars This is a terrific read, but not Ms. Delinsky's best., January 29, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Coast Road: A Novel (Hardcover)
The story is wonderful, and the way it's presented is both unique and interesting. Ms. Delinsky has a writing style and a way of exploring contemporary women's issues that few other authors can match. If you haven't read this book, by all means do so. It will probably make you smile and definitely make you cry.

Having said that, I found Jack to be a much more sympathetic character than Rachel. Yes, he has flaws. And, yes, he carries much of the weight of responsibility for the loss of their marriage. Much...but not all.

I didn't feel that Rachel ever owned up to her own contribution to their divorce. After all, she walked out on Jack. Without explanation. She took his daughters and went someplace where she could be more creative. But never - not once - did she tell him why she was leaving or what he was doing wrong. She expected him to read her mind in several situations - to anticipate needs she never expressed - and when he couldn't, she punished him. Jack had to discover Rachel's feelings secondhand and I think that was an injustice.

That was the weakest link in this book. The relationships between Jack and his daughters and Jack and Rachel's friends are developed beautifully (and, incidentally, comprise much of the book). Likewise, Jack's path of discovery and growth is believable and heartwrenching.

Jack's character alone makes this book worth reading.

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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Finding your way back to what's really important..., September 4, 1999
By A Customer
This review is from: Coast Road: A Novel (Paperback)
An ex-husband is forced to become primary care-giver to his 2 daughters while his ex-wife lies in a coma. In the process he discovers his life isn't what he wants and finds what he wants.

I enjoyed the book written from the guy's perspective. All the friends of the ex-wife were interesting and I wished I could have learned more about them. This is the 2nd Delinsky book I've read and they were both enjoyable reads.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Where the road takes you..., June 8, 2000
By 
This review is from: Coast Road: A Novel (Paperback)
Coast Road is one of Barbara Delinsky's best, although it took me some time to realize it. I read the back cover many times before I decided to read it, based solely on the fact one of the two main characters was in a coma for much of the story. I was never a fan of flashbacks, but Coast Road is a unique book.

Divorced for 6 years, Rachel Keats and Jack McGill followed different paths that ultimately would lead them to the same place...to a roller coaster ride of emotions that were solely Jack's. In the middle of the night, Jack is awakened by a phone call informing him that the mother of his two daughters is in a coma following a car accident. He rushes to be with his daughters, but as they struggle with the idea of life without Rachel, Jack realizes he still loves his former wife. The format of the story is filled with vivid memories--(I don't want to call them flashbacks)--and present day pains: the understanding that love is a fleeting thing that you must catch it while you can.

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