For Patricia Curren, the summer of 1978 begins with a cruel discovery: an unfamiliar black pearl button in the bed she shares with her controlling husband, Jack. Seeking the courage to end her desolate marriage, Patricia opts for a quiet summer alone on Kiawah Island, off the coast of Charleston. But when she meets Terry Sloan, a collegiate tennis player desperate to turn pro, a physical attraction sparks a slow burn toward obsession.
Though Patricia and Terry are an unlikely young couple, after sharing closely guarded secrets from their pasts, they want more than a summer together. But new love falters. A potential sponsor takes an unusually keen interest in Terry—on and off court—and single, career-driven Lynn Hewitt discovers the affair. As Patricia's friend, her husband's assistant, and a big sister figure to Terry, Lynn is trapped in the middle, struggling to protect them all while urging Patricia to bare the dark secret she's kept from Terry all summer.
An intimate portrait of the folly of the human heart, Breaking and Holding explores buried truths, startlingly unveiled, and their power to shatter lives … or redeem them.
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