The Richest Season [Hardcover]

Maryann McFadden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2008

"In Maryann McFadden's brave and carefully made novel, The Richest Season, two women set out on open-ended odysseys, one to find her life, one to find meaning in her death. Lonely Joanna gives up all she knows for a single chance at all she needs. When they meet, Grace relinquishes her aloof solitude to embrace life at its end, banking on the borrowed courage of a stranger. McFadden is out of the gate and on her way."
--Jacquelyn Mitchard, author ofThe Deep End of the Ocean and Still Summer

"Set in the fabled landscape of South Carolina's Low Country, The Richest Season takes us on a heartrending journey of discovery. Maryann McFadden is an exciting new author who writes with compassion, wisdom, and astonishing skill."
--Cassandra King, author of Queen of Broken Hearts and The Same Sweet Girls

"The Richest Season is filled with so much honesty and searching and struggle involving three characters whom I grew to love, that I hated to come to the end."
--Paulette Bates Alden, author of Crossing the Moon and Feeding the Eagles

Sometimes you have to leave your life to find yourself again . . .

After more than a dozen moves in twenty-five years of marriage, Joanna Harrison is lonely and tired of being a corporate wife. Her children are grown and gone, her husband is more married to his job than to her, and now they're about to pack up once more. Panicked at the thought of having to start all over again, Joanna commits the first irresponsible act of her life. She runs away to Pawleys Island, South Carolina, a place she's been to just once.

She finds a job as a live-in companion to Grace Finelli, a widow who has come to the island to fulfill a girlhood dream. Together the two women embark on the most difficult journey of their lives: Joanna struggling for independence, roots, and a future of her own, as her family tugs at her from afar; and Grace, choosing to live the remainder of her life for herself alone, knowing she may never see her children again.

Entwined is Paul Harrison's story as he loses his wife, his job, and everything that defines him as a man. He takes off on his own journey out west, searching for the answers to all that has gone wrong in his life. One thing remains constant: He wants his wife back.

Joanna, however, is moving farther away from her old life as she joins a group dedicated to rescuing endangered loggerhead turtles, led by a charismatic fisherman unlike anyone she's ever met.

The Richest Season is a stunning debut about three very different people, each changing their lives when such transformations are usually long over. It will resonate with any woman who's ever fantasized about leaving home to find herself.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A quirky charm takes the place of easy answers in this midlife tear-up, originally self-published by debut author McFadden. A neglected corporate wife for 25 years, Joanna Harrison rebels when husband Paul receives yet another move-necessitating promotion. Before they go, with her children grown, Joanna gets in her car and leaves their upscale Jersey digs. Ending up at Pawley's Island, S.C., Joanna meets Grace, an elderly artist who has a house on the ocean and needs a live-in companion. A floundering Paul heads to Pawley Island to try to woo Joanna back, but soon has further crises to face. Skillful plotting keeps pages turning, and McFadden quickly has readers rooting for intriguing Joanna, on the cusp of change. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author

Maryann McFadden has been a successful realtor for the past twenty years, but she always wanted to be a novelist. The Richest Season began as her thesis project when she returned to school for a Master's degree. She lives in Hackettstown, New Jersey, where she is at work on her next novel.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 18 and up
  
• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Hyperion; First Edition edition (June 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401322700
• ISBN-13: 978-1401322700
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.5 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (49 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,265,604 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

THE BOOK LOVER, my 3rd novel, will debut on May 1, 2012. Stay tuned for more information! I am so excited to introduce a unique story about the book world, and the passionate people who inhabit it. This story is filled with love, loss, betrayal, and the daring risks we take to follow our dreams. It's a story I know personally, and one I hope you'll fall in love with.


ABOUT ME

Ever since I was a little girl, nothing gave me more pleasure than losing myself in a good book. And now, as a writer, I get that same joy as I lose myself in the creation of a rich and intricate story with memorable characters. Characters who are not so very different from you and me, really, as they struggle to find their way in life.

I began writing poetry and stories in high school. After college, I worked as a freelance writer while raising my babies, squeezing writing time in while they napped in the afternoons. I wrote for a variety of newspapers and specialized in health and fitness articles for magazines such as WORKING WOMAN and WOMEN'S SPORTS & FITNESS. But after nearly a decade of working mostly from home, a bit lonely, I must admit, I left writing and pursued a career in real estate, of all things. I found myself becoming intimately involved in people's lives. I loved it. And I was good at it.

For the next 15 years, I helped my customers sell their homes, whether for a job transfer, a divorce, a death, or simply the need for a change in life. I also helped them to pursue their dreams as they sought a first home, a cottage by the river to soothe a grieving heart, or a little ranch after spending more than 50 years in a rambling Victorian. These stories of people's lives, I began to realize, were rich and precious, the kinds of stories people like to read about..

And then my own children began leaving the nest, and the need to write again began to consume me.

I returned to school, got a Master's Degree in Literature with a Concentration in Writing, and turned to the kind of writing I always loved best: fiction. My first novel, THE RICHEST SEASON, is the story of a corporate wife who runs away. As a realtor, I witnessed first-hand the trials and tribulations of families relocating every few years all around the world. My second novel, SO HAPPY TOGETHER, is a sandwich generation novel, something so many of us are familiar with these days. What happens when you've finally hit that age where you think you can spread your wings and live your dreams--only to find your family tugging at you from all directions. That's what happens to Claire as she's about to leave for a dream summer in Cape Cod.

I enjoy setting my stories in the kinds of places I like to escape to. THE RICHEST SEASON takes place at one of my favorite beaches in the world, Pawleys Island, South Carolina. And SO HAPPY TOGETHER unfolds in a charming little town in northwest New Jersey, not unlike the place where I live, and also at the tip of Cape Cod, otherwise known as "land's end."
So Happy Together will be coming out in Summer, 2009.

My writing is filled with things I am passionate about: nature, wildlife, gardening, writing, family, love, and the spiritual side of life. And also the complicated dance of the human heart.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a deeply satisfying read, June 19, 2006

By 

Rebecca Brown "rebeccasreads" (Clallam Bay, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Richest Season (Paperback)

Rebeccasreads recommends THE RICHEST SEASON as an engrossing read written from three points of view -- Joanna, Grace & Paul - as each struggles with loss, death, love & their sense of worth.

Joanna has been the perfect corporate wife & mother whose nest not only is empty -- her daughter is living in Colorado & her son is away at college in Montana -- her husband, Paul, has just become a VP of his company & is going to have to relocate, again. She's lost count of the houses they've lived in.

Out running one morning in the New Jersey estate, it's all become too much. Joanna dreads the thought of moving, she misses her children & she's furious that the man she married has vanished.

As she runs the thought keeps coming up -- just run away from it all & go find a life. & so she does, packing some stuff into her Jeep & heading south to a place remembered from one of her family's vacation years ago -- an island on the South Carolina coast.

There she meets Grace, who lives in a house built on the beach, who needs a live-in assistant & a six month commitment.

When Paul finally locates his errant wife, their reunion goes awry as the fear & resentment overwhelms them. He goes back to the only constant in his life -- his work -- & when that is suddenly pulled out from under his feet, he's cast adrift & doesn't know what to do, so he buys a van & heads west to visit his daughter & son, & maybe find out what to do next.

THE RICHEST REASON is a richly told coming of age story that will give reading groups much to think about.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A cut above, June 16, 2008

By 

BookLover "BookLover" (US) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Richest Season (Hardcover)

I don't know if it was the cover, but I wasn't expecting this to be as well written or developed as it is. Expecting this might be a light weight beach read, I was pleasantly surprised to find very well developed characters, excellent descriptive imagery, and wonderfully intertwined stories of the three main characters. The Richest Season is a cut above most popular fiction, yet it's also very readable and entertaining. This is a terrific balance of serious writing and an engrossing story. Highly recommended!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An extremely moving story, August 7, 2008

By 

Meghan K. Kawka - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Richest Season (Hardcover)

Joanna has decided before that she is tired of being a corporate wife, but after her husband receives yet another promotion requiring yet another move, she has had enough and sets off to find a life of her own. She arrives in Pawleys Island confused and in need of guidance. What she finds is an old woman named Grace with some difficulties of her own and a small community that is destined to change the way Joanna thinks. Meanwhile, her husband, Paul, only realizes after his life collapses that some serious changes need to be made. In this way, two lives are rebuilt.

I really, really enjoyed this book. I loved the atmosphere of it, particularly the feel of the island. I was walking along the sand with Joanna, looking out Grace's window, and smelling the salty sea air. McFadden creates a great sense of atmosphere here that I really appreciated. I was consistently immersed in the story and found myself thinking about it even when I hadn't been reading for a while.

I found it particularly amusing that the NJ town mentioned in the book is my hometown, where my parents live. Typically, the author had the attitude of this place down, but I couldn't reconcile any of the physical details with what she said, so I think she made up the developments and the things like the annual outdoor market, unless I have just been missing out on them for the past 15 years. Not only that, but one of the local bookstore owners where I used to buy my books for school is quoted on the back of my ARC copy. I'm astounded that this little town in the middle of nowhere has now appeared in a book that I have read!

As for the plot, I was never bored and I was moved very, very often. This one is certainly an emotional read. I loved watching Paul and Joanna find themselves, and Grace's story affected me deeply. I think we can see a little of ourselves in each character - we are all sometimes lost and confused, we all have to figure out who we are (sooner or later) in order to love ourselves and those around us, and almost everyone has known and probably loved someone whose situation is very similar to Grace's. Some readers are there themselves, which is heartbreaking. I felt connected and sympathetic to all three of the main characters and I wanted desperately for their wishes to come true.

This is an extremely touching story. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who was ready to embrace such a heart-rending and simultaneously heart-warming book.