This Nearly Was Mine: A Novel

In the summer of 1980, Annie, fresh out of graduate school, escapes a doomed engagement by fleeing to the Costa del Sol in Spain. The young traveler is seduced by the striking landscape and the shimmering sea, but not as profoundly as she was by Francisco, a local musician with a complicated past and a troubled soul. Her adventures propel her into adulthood and a life teased with what might have been. Twenty-six years later, Annie's teenage daughter Marielle, curious about her mother's stories, searches for Francisco while on a backpacking trip through Spain. When Marielle's search is successful, Annie's thoughts return to her romantic past amidst the magnificent backdrop of the steamy Mediterranean coast. Francisco's unexpected reappearance ignites powerful feelings she didn't know were still simmering. Annie obsessively questions every decision she made that summer and wonders about a life that could have been hers had she stayed. She is torn between her love and devotion to her husband and the intercontinental pull to the life she has fantasized about for decades. Will she sacrifice the life she's built with her husband for one that nearly was hers so many years ago?