The Other Side of Summer

Title: The Other Side of Summer

Author: Elyse Douglas

Genre: Contemporary Romance

Joanna Halloran, a best selling writer and astrologer, lives in a beach house overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. After a violent storm, she roams the beach, glances seaward and spots a man clinging to a piece of wreckage, being tossed helplessly. She dives in and pulls him to safety. Robert Zachary Harrison is from a wealthy, political family. As he slowly recovers from a private plane crash, he and Joanna fall in love and spend passionate and secluded weeks together. But because of family duty, Robert departs, not knowing Joanna is pregnant.

Twenty five years later, Senator Robert Harrison is running for President of the United States.  In the midst of a contentious presidential campaign, Joanna’s beautiful daughter, who has a passion to expose secrets, seeks revenge on the father she has never met.  She also begins a passionate relationship with her father’s adopted son.

Joanna and Robert must confront the past and present.  While the world watches, they struggle with old passions and new secrets that could destroy them both.

Author Bio

Elyse Douglas is the pen name for the married writing team Elyse Parmentier and Douglas Pennington.   Elyse grew up near the sea, roaming the beaches, reading and writing stories and poetry, receiving a degree in English Literature.  She has enjoyed careers as an English teacher, an actress and a  speech-language pathologist.  Douglas has been a musician, a graphic designer and an equity trader.

Elyse Douglas, have completed seven novels: The Summer Diary, Christmas for Juliet, Wanting Rita, Christmas Ever After, The Christmas Town, The Christmas Diary and The Other Side of Summer.

Links

Website: www.elysedouglas.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/elyse.authorsdouglas

Twitter: https://twitter.com/douglaselyse

Blog: http://www.elysedouglas.com/blog-index

Amazon Link:  http://amzn.to/1KdVjvg

Book Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R90y3L6eC_U

Excerpt

They slept in the cottage, although neither had slept much.  Joanna now lay in bed alone, staring into the humid darkness, confused and haunted by feelings of betrayal and compassion; her mind filled with a virulent strain of anger.  She felt betrayed by a capricious world that promenades romance and love across the movie screens and the pages of steamy novels, with the false promise of fulfillment and happiness.  In magazines, pop songs and TV ads, the young, with sassy attitudes and adolescent insouciance, gyrate and pose, licking their fat sensual lips in an invitation to fall under the sinister spell of Neptune, the planet of illusion. 

She knew all this.  She’d written about it in her book, using the symbols and signs of astrology.  She had even used fairy tales as an example: Cinderella and Snow White.  She had warned her readers about these not so innocent Neptunian stories and had just stopped short of writing that the naked reality of love often lies somewhere between deplorable hope and childish despair.

Joanna rolled to her side and stared out the window in an effort of self-control.  The first gray light of dawn began chasing away shadows.  Her compassion for Robert grew as the aching minutes passed.  He had left a few minutes before and was surely roaming the beach, haggard and conflicted, as he had been most of the night. 

The sun would rise shortly and the unraveling, indefinite day would begin.  The painful process of separation would begin.  Their perfect lifetime together was coming to an end and she was entirely unprepared for it, despite all of her astrological “wisdom” and counseling experience.  She had conveniently shut out the possibility that Robert would ever leave.  Over the past weeks, she had completely ignored the inevitable and the obvious: Robert had another life and he would have to go back to it.  She was, after all, the “other” woman.

Joanna had no illusions.  Regardless of whether Robert returned to her or not, their life together would never be the same.  Their transparent innocence had finally been seen for what it was: a chimera, a little fairy tale that would have lasted forever, except that there was an epilogue.  A disclaimer: “Dear Reader, all of the previous pages were written under the influence of self-delusion.”

Morning came with a wet silver light, a brisk wind and a gentle mist.  Joanna dressed in jeans, a sweatshirt and a jacket, and left the cottage for the house.  She paused near the edge of the cliff and searched for Robert.  The surf was restless.  The beach was empty.  Where had he gone?