Jesse goes missing and is presumed dead like the other three passengers on board. The day before their first wedding anniversary, Jesse leaves on a last-minute work trip to Alaska however, his helicopter crashes. Jesse proposes to Emma when they are 25, and they get married at his parents’ family cabin in Maine. Against all expectations, she graduates college with a journalism degree, and goes on to become a travel writer, while Jesse works as a production assistant on nature documentaries. Emma takes a travel writing class in college because it subsidizes trips for students, and discovers she loves writing as much as traveling. There is a spark between the two, and they kiss that night that summer, they fall in love, and Sam leaves town for college without saying goodbye to Emma.Įmma and Jesse eventually go to the University of Los Angeles together. They encourage each other to follow their dreams: Emma to leave Acton and attend college in California, and Jesse to quit competitive swimming. Emma and Jesse have a conversation at the party, in which Jesse confesses that he hates swimming despite being extremely good at it, and Emma reveals that she hates reading despite her parents owning Blair Books. They end up attending the same high school party after graduation, where Jesse is also present Jesse has since broken up with his girlfriend. Sam graduates high school at the end of Emma’s sophomore year. Emma finds Sam cute, but is overwhelmed by her crush on Jesse and unable to reciprocate his feelings Sam backs off, and Emma and Sam eventually become close friends. While working a shift at Blair Books one evening, she is asked out by Sam, a boy who also works at the store and is a couple of years older than her. Emma develops a crush on him, but is forced to quell her feelings when he starts going out with another girl. In her freshman year, she comes across Jesse Lerner, a classmate who is handsome and popular, and considered a prodigy swimmer. Emma is far less popular at school and hates reading-she wants to leave Acton as soon as possible and travel the world instead. She has an older sister, Marie, with whom she is not close Marie is the perfect “Bookseller’s Daughter”-smart, popular, an avid reader and aspiring writer. Part 2 explores how Emma deals with Jesse’s reappearance.Įmma is born and raised in Acton, Massachusetts, where her parents own and run a bookstore, Blair Books, founded by her great-uncle. Part 1 follows Emma’s high school life and relationship with Jesse, Jesse’s disappearance, and her eventual engagement to Sam. The Prologue sets up the novel’s context and central conflict: the return of Emma Blair’s first husband, Jesse Lerner, from his presumed death, just two months after she gets engaged to another man, Sam Kemper. This guide is based on the Simon and Schuster UK Kindle Edition.

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