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It was the year that changed everything...When Susannah Nelson turned eighteen, she said goodbye to her boyfriend, Jake--and never saw him again. She never saw her brother, Doug, again, either. He died unexpectedly that same year.Now, at fifty, Susannah finds herself regretting the paths not taken. Long married, a mother and a teacher, she should be happy. But she feels there's something missing in her life. Not only that, she's balancing the demands of an aging mother and a temperamental twenty-year-old daughter.Her mother, Vivian, a recent widow, is having difficulty coping and living alone, so Susannah goes home to Colville, Washington. In returning to her parents' house, her girlhood friends and the garden she's always loved, she also returns to the past--and the choices she made back then. What she discovers is that things are not always as they once seemed. Some paths are dead ends. But some gardens remain beautiful....
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I love this story. Some parts of it remind me of my own time as a young adult when I left home. It's a difficult time for parents and daughters. Young girls grow up and want to get out and experience life but parents, especially father's of daughters, have a hard time letting them go. They love them so much they want to save them from any pain they may encounter but in the process they are preventing them from living their own lives. Even though they are acting out of love they are effectively putting them in prison and sometimes expect them to do things and achieve dreams they failed to do. A daughter is a new woman though with dreams and aspirations of her own.
I've read this book many times but it never grows old for me.