The Summer I Dared

The Summer I Dared by Barbara Delinsky This is the
question that haunts Julia Bechtel Noah Prine and Kim
Colella the only survivors of a terrible boating accident
off the coast of Maine that claimed the lives of nine
other people. Julia a forty-year-old wife and mother has
always taken the path of least resistance. Pigeonholed by
her controlling family and increasingly distant husband as
loyal and obedient she realizes in the aftermath of her
brush with death that there is more to her — and to the
world around her — than she ever imagined. Feeling
strangely connected to Noah the divorced brooding
lobsterman who helped save her life and to Kim a
twenty-one-year-old whose role in the accident and
subsequent muteness are a mystery Julia begins to explore
the unique possibilities offered by the quiet island of
Big Sawyer Maine. Suddenly things that once seemed
critical lose significance and things that seemed
inconsequential take on a whole new importance. With each
passing moment each new discovery Julia grows more sure
that after coming face-to-face with death she must have
more from life. Resolving to make things right for the
future and drawing on an inner strength she never knew she
possessed Julia passionately awakens to a new world
fearlessly embracing uncertainties in a way she couldnt
have imagined only a few weeks ago. Set in a beautifully
rendered island off the coast of Maine where lobstermen
leave with the tides each morning to haul and reset their
traps and neighbors gather each night to feast on the
catch of the day Barbara Delinskys The Summer I Dared is a
deeply moving story of the risky but rewarding search for
self a story of survival and of the irrepressible ability
of the human spirit to rebound from disaster and to create
life anew.