USA Today and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author Marie Ferrarella is releasing her three hard-to-find women’s contemporary novels written in the tradition of Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts and Debbie Macomber. Finally available again, these heart-tugging stories explore the tangled emotional lives of three women. Presenting the first, SAPPHIRE AND SHADOW.
“A look at the grit beneath the glitz and one woman’s triumph over both”–Nora Roberts
They could have had it all.
Johanna Whitney does seem to have it all–beauty, intelligence, talent, and a rich husband whose genius has created stunning films. What she is desperately trying to cover up is just how tragically that life is coming unraveled. Her husband’s drug use, fueled by his fear of being unable to replicate his success, renders him incapable of showing her the love she once gave up everything for. Her closest friend is killed in a plane crash and even her daughter seems to prefer her husband’s latest young lover to her own mother. The harder Johanna works at trying to patch the holes of her life, the more things come undone.
It all comes to a head on location in London. Johanna watches happiness slipping away and turns for comfort to a young British artisan. He tries to teach her to love herself again, and to dare to reach for happiness. Though he manages to awaken her emotions, her husband’s drug arrest in Italy and her daughter’s sudden illness make her realize she needs to go home–not to Los Angeles, but to New York.
Leaving all the wealth and influence she’s been living with behind, she and her daughter feel like refugees as they search for a place to live and a way to make a living. Both needs are answered when they find shelter with an old friend and colleague in his art gallery. Johanna is back to her roots in the art world, but she’s been gone a long time and she searches to find ways to heal and blossom. Even more difficult is the struggle to release her heart from the chains of fear and learn to love again.
(excerpt)
“It’s Johanna.”
Harold blinked. Reality was calling him. With extreme difficulty, he tried to focus his mind. “Where?” He looked around the suite. It swam before him, but he didn’t see her.
“On the phone.” Paul held it up.
“She wants to talk to me?” His tongue felt thick and he didn’t want to talk. He wanted to feel. There were things to do, projects to conquer. And he was equal to all of it!
Damn, Johanna was always interfering with his life, his space. Johanna had left in tears this morning. She was always leaving in tears these days. Woman was all water, no substance.
“No,” Paul covered the receiver, instinctively feeling that Johanna wasn’t going to want to hear this, “she wants her charge card.”
“Why, is London for sale?”
Harold laughed hysterically at his own joke, his voice cracking. The sound of his laughter filled his head and reverberated back. The room sounded as if it were full of laughter.
Laughter at him.
No, damn it, they wouldn’t laugh at him. He’d pull this off. He had to pull this off. And then they’d all come crawling back to him. As they should.
Paul shook his head. “She’s at a boutique on Regent Street and she forgot her wallet.”
“So? What does she want from me? I’m not her errand boy.”
You’re not her husband lately, either, Paul was tempted to say, but let it pass. He had been with Harold’s production company for eleven years now, coming in when Harold had been riding the high, heady crest of success and adulation. He had seen the man once thought of as a boy genius descend into his own private hell, dragging his family with him. The fawning cheers had turned to ill-concealed smirks and Harold had sought inspiration and solace in drugs, in starlets eager for attention, giving him the attention he sought so desperately. He sought support in everything except
