Coast Road: A Novel

As her many bestsellers and her loyal fans attest, Barbara Delinsky tells the kind of spellbinding stories that touch readers deeply and stay with them always. In Coast Road, she hits home again, this time with a story of a very real family facing a life-changing crisis.

The book opens with a terrible middle-of-the-night phone call. Jack McGill, an architect in San Francisco, is informed that his ex-wife of six years, Rachel Keats, is comatose after an automobile accident. Putting his own troubled life on hold, Jack heads for Big Sur to be with Rachel and their two daughters.

Rachel's coma lasts for three weeks. During that time, Jack comes to know her better than he ever did -- through their daughters, through Rachel's friends, and even more revealingly, through her art. Her paintings help to tell the story of their failed marriage and Jack begins to understand the consequences of having lost sight of the dreams he once shared with her. His life in San Francisco has become gray and foggy. Reentering Rachel's life, he experiences a slow return of color.

Coast Road is the portrait of a marriage: its rise, fall, and resurrection. As they rediscover each other, Rachel and Jack show us that sometimes being knocked violently off course is the only way we can gain our bearings and find our way home -- back to the people and places that matter most.