From the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Saving Graces and Circle of Three comes the poignant story of two women struggling to come to grips with the past that haunts them both.
Though Anna once adored her aunt Rose, that ended when she betrayed Anna and her mother -- Rose's terminally ill sister -- and Anna can't forgive or forget. Years later, her own heart broken, Anna returns home to Rose, and to the family restaurant, the Bella Sorella, now grown shabby with age.
Anna is still reluctant to forgive Rose, insisting that her stay is temporary. But the intimacy of working with Rose to put the Bella Sorella back on its feet, and an unexpected chance at true love, bring about a change of heart.
Patricia Gaffney once again delivers a story told with grace and warmth, reminding us that there's no place like home.

Flight Lessons

Literature & Fiction

GAFFNEY, PATRICIA

United States

Harper Large Print

From the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Saving, Graces and Circle of Three comes the poignant story of two women struggling to come to grips with the past that haunts them both.Anna once adored her aunt Rose. That ended when Rose betrayed Anna and her mother -- Rose's terminally ill sister -- and Anna can't forgive or forget. Years later, her own heart broken, Anna returns home to Rose, and to the family restaurant, the Bella Sorella, now grown shabby with age.Anna is still reluctant to forgive Rose, insisting that her stay is temporary. But the intimacy of working with Rose to put the Bella Sorella back on its feet, and an unexpected chance at true, love, bring about a change of heart.Patricia Gaffney once again delivers a story told with grace and warmth, reminding us that there's no place like, home.Performed by Jennifer Van Dyck

Romance

HarperAudio

From the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Saving, Graces and Circle of Three comes the poignant story of two women struggling to come to grips with the past that haunts them both.
Anna once adored her aunt Rose. That ended when Rose betrayed Anna and her mother -- Rose's terminally ill sister -- and Anna can't forgive or forget. Years later, her own heart broken, Anna returns home to Rose, and to the family restaurant, the Bella Sorella, now grown shabby with age.
Anna is still reluctant to forgive Rose, insisting that her stay is temporary. But the intimacy of working with Rose to put the Bella Sorella back on its feet, and an unexpected chance at true, love, bring about a change of heart.
Patricia Gaffney once again delivers a story told with grace and warmth, reminding us that there's no place like, home.Performed by Jennifer Van Dyck

Flight Lessons CD

Contemporary

From the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Saving Graces and Circle of Three comes the poignant story of two women struggling to come to terms with the past that haunts them both.
For sixteen years Anna has studiously avoided her Aunt Rose. Exchanging cards at holiday time -- that's as far as Anna is willing to go with the woman she once loved more than anyone else in the world. That love died the night Rose betrayed Anna and her mother -- Rose's own fatally ill sister -- and Anna can't forgive or forget. Years have passed since she's been back to her hometown on Maryland's Eastern Shore, where Rose still runs the aging family restaurant, the Bella Sorella. Anna has built a life elsewhere with a job she likes and a man she loves. Or so she thought.
The problem, or one of them, was that circumstances had split her life down the middle. She was always of two minds, the hopeful half versus the skeptic, optimist against pessimist. Or maybe it had evened out and she was now a relativist, a contingency artist. Either way, it didn't help that at this late date a theme was taking shape -- a motif or whatever you wanted to call it, a pattern -- consisting of Anna walking in on trusted loved ones in bed with each other.
Anna clearly needs an escape, but the only place for her to go is home: to the family, to the restaurant, to Rose, who has been trying for more than a decade to regain Anna's trust. And right now Rose needs her more than ever. 
Feelings between the two women remain as chilly as ever, even in the steamy kitchen of the Bella Sorella, where values clash and generations collide -- and outside it, where their personal lives become entangled in surprising ways. Anna is a reluctant partner in this intricate dance of forgiveness and reconciliation, insisting that her stay is only temporary. Her plan is to leave a second time, as soon as the restaurant is back on its feet and her own hurt is healed. But her determination to remain unaffected by Rose's longing to undo the past and create a future blinds Anna to a chance for human connection and she almost fails to recognize true love, even when it reaches in and grabs her by the heart.
Touching, funny, poignant, and wise,Flight Lessons is a moving story of truth and loyalty, of the bonds that shape and sustain us and, ultimately, uplift us. Patricia Gaffney once again delivers a story told with grace and warmth, filled with the recognition of self and reminding us that there's no place like home.

Harper

The Goodbye Summer is an unforgettable novel about daring to love, braving a loss, and setting yourself free, byPatricia Gaffney, the author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller, The Saving Graces. Poignantly exploring one woman’s inner growth and self discovery over the course of a season of profound change, The Goodbye Summer is women’s fiction at its finest—heartbreaking, healing, emotional, and real. As Nora Roberts so aptly puts it, Patricia Gaffney “reminds us what it’s like to be a woman.”

The Goodbye Summer: A Novel

Friendship sustains and enriches women's lives in way's no romantic or family relationship ever can. A source of solace, support, and nourishment, it is a tie that powerfully connects woman to woman in unforgettable, joyous, sometimes painful ways. In this wonderfully warm, humorous, and moving novel, Patricia Gaffney paints a rich portrait of this delicate yet resilient bond through the lives of four charming. vividly real women.
For ten years, Emma, Rudy, Lee. and Isabel have shared a deep affection that has helped them deal with husbands, lovers, careers, children -- the ebb and flow of expectations and disappointments common to us all. Calling themselves the Saving Graces, the quartet is united by understanding, honesty, and acceptance--an ephemeral connection that has grown stronger as the years go by...
Emma, a sharp-tongued. soft-hearted skeptic, doesn't believe in love -- until she meets the one man she can't have. For her, the Saving Graces are fall-breakers extraordinaire. She believes that "bad news doesn't hurt as much if you hear it in good company."
A beauty with an extraordinary gift for love and a shaky, dysfunctional past, Rudy is desperately trying to hold on to her deeply troubled marriage. She's not sure where she'd be without the Saving Graces. "I don't know why my friends bother with me, I'm so high-maintenance. I would run if I saw me coming. But they're always so patient and supportive."
Lee, whom they all are sure is "the normal one," longs for a baby. But her overwhelming desire for motherhood threatens to destroy an idyllic marriage. The Saving Graces are the sounding board on which she unburdens her hopes and fears. "I know I'm consumed by our infertility, and that's nor fair to Henry....He says I blame everything that's wrong with my whole life, on the fact that we can't have children. It's true, I know. I'm driving him away."
Isabel, the oldest, is a survivor whose wisdom and strength were forged by the worst trials life can offer. Divorced and free, she's falling for her single, attractive neighbor -- a man she's sure must be gay. Hers is the guiding insight that propels and grounds the Saving Graces. "We're all productive, tolerably sane, functioning adults, we Graces, with no more emotional baggage -- well, except for Rudy -- than you would expect in a random sampling of aging yuppie women. And yet our childhoods were disasters. Occasionally we four play the intriguing `What keeps us together?' game, and the fact that we all survived our childhoods is mentioned early and often."
Though these sisters of the heart and soul have seen it all, talked through it all, Emma, Rudy, Lee, and Isabel will not be prepared for a crisis of astounding proportions that will put their love, loyalty, and courage to the ultimate test. Captivating from first page to last, this mesmerizing story illuminates the emotional links that define and join us as women. While men, jobs, and crises may come and go, nothing lasts like true friendship. Funny, inspirational, joyous, and oh-so-true, The Saving Graces is a novel no reader will forget -- a story to be passed from friend to friend.

The Saving Graces: A Novel

“Gaffney’s characters are appealing and realistic…Readers will race through this book.” —New Orleans Times Picayune
“Poignant….Entertaining….As good as it gets.” —New York Post
No other author writes about the lives and friendships of women with more warmth and grace than New York Times bestseller Patricia Gaffney. A true master of women’s fiction, with Circle of Three she flourishes the same breathtaking characterization and storytelling skills that made her previous novel, The Saving Graces, a readers’ favorite. The story of a woman grieving for her losses and her life, and her relationship with her overbearing mother and precocious young daughter, Circle of Three focuses on three generations of a troubled family, the anger and misunderstanding that separates them…and the love that holds them together. Gaffney does beautifully what Elizabeth Berg, Anne Rivers Siddons, and Anne Tyler also do so well: exploring the tricky bonds of family in novels both heart-soaring and heartbreaking.

Circle of Three: A Novel

Dramas & Plays

The Goodbye Summer

The New York Times bestselling author of the much-beloved The Saving Graces is back with a warm, winning new novel about daring to love, braving a loss, and learning to live a little. How much change can one summer bring? If you're Caddie Winger -- thirty-two years old, still living with her grandmother and giving piano lessons to neighborhood children -- one summer can make the whole world look different. Caddie's mother died when she was nine, and her grandmother raised her. Now their roles are reversed, and it's Caddie who takes care of Nana. When her grandmother breaks a leg and insists on going into a convalescent home, Caddie finds herself being pulled out of her comfy, self-made nest. Living alone for the first time since college, she uncovers some startling truths from her past. Jolted, she looks at the world with new eyes and begins to take charge of her future. As she makes a new best friend, takes risks she never dreamed she could, and navigates the depths and shallows of true love and devastating heartbreak, Caddie learns how to trust other people and, ultimately, how to trust herself. Wise, moving and reassuringly real, The Goodbye Summer offers us a deeper understanding of the perplexing and invigorating magic that is life itself. Performed by Jan Maxwell

Literary

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by GAFFNEY, PATRICIA. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by GAFFNEY, PATRICIA

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by GAFFNEY, PATRICIA. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Flight Lessons

Flight Lessons

Flight Lessons CD

Flight Lessons

The Goodbye Summer: A Novel

The Saving Graces: A Novel

Circle of Three: A Novel

Circle of Three: A Novel

The Goodbye Summer

The Goodbye Summer: A Novel