At 45, Adrienne Willis must rethink her entire life when her husband abandons her. In search of a respite, she agrees to tend a friend's inn for the weekend in the small coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina. But a major storm and an unexpected guest bring two wounded people together.

Sparks (A Bend in the Road, etc.) logs more miles on the winding high road of romance with the story of two middle-aged people who meet by chance in the small North Carolina coastal town of Rodanthe. The impassioned but doomed romance seems to owe much to Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County. Once again, a housewife who has focused on everyone but herself indulges in a brief, intense, secret affair with a stranger who changes her life forever. As the story begins, Adrienne Willis is 60, the divorced mother of three grown children. To help her troubled daughter cope with the untimely recent death of her husband, Adrienne tells her the tale of her love affair, which took place 15 years before. At the time, Adrienne was an uptight matron whose ex-husband had just left her for a younger woman. This rejection colors her entire life, and Sparks realistically portrays a vulnerable and isolated woman who throws herself into raising her children to escape her despair. Paul Flanner, her paramour, is a surgeon and an obsessive workaholic with no genuine connection to his wife or son, whose world completely falls apart when one of his patients inexplicably dies. Sparks builds a taut, plausible relationship between his protagonists, but even fans may be irked by the obviousness of their story and the inevitability of their fate.

Adrienne Willis's concern for her widowed daughter prompts her to relate a story she thought would live only in her own heart, a story of love and redemption, loss and grief. JoBeth Williams's tender narration captures the introspection and sadness of Adrienne's tale, as well as its passion. Her detached portrayal of Paul and Adrienne's lives before they find each other conveys all the flatness of their existence, despite the many events filling their days. Williams's characterizations, however, particularly that of the women, would be better if they were not infused with Southern accents. While technically accurate, they sound more stereotypical than real. Soft piano interludes elegantly separate chapters and polish the finished work. R.P.L.

length: (cm)17.8 　　　 　　　　　 　 width:(cm)10.6