Julia and Michael were high school sweethearts, rescuing each other from their small town West Virginia life and running to Washington, D.C., where they vowed to escape the legacies of gambling addiction and unhappy marriages that they left behind them. When Michael’s hard work finally pays off and his start-up company selling flavored vitamin water takes off, the life that they had once imagined suddenly pales in comparison to the riches set out before them: a palatial estate in Washington, D.C., another house in Aspen, gardeners, servants, and endless reserves of money are all at their beck and call. Even though the love is gone from their marriage, Julia tries to be content with her life, still scarred from the lack of security in her own childhood. But then Michael’s heart stops. And he dies. Clinically dead for more than four minutes, he wakes up a transformed man, one who gives away all of his money and auctions off his possessions, now concerned with love and personal fulfillment, rather than money. Now Julia must decide whether to leave her husband, who once gave her only a loveless marriage, or stay and try to make it work with this stranger, who promises her love and adoration…but not security. Sarah Pekkannen truly creates a masterfully layered protagonist in this novel, one whom I slightly disliked at the beginning of the novel, yet eventually grew to respect and understand, if not ever love. Julia is complex, and can be both frustrating and sympathetic. Yet all of her actions are firmly rooted in her backstory, and the novel itself is well-plotted. One quibble I did have was with the ending, which seemed to rely a bit upon a deux ex machina. However, the conclusion did still work, in its own way. Recommended for fans of Jennifer Weiner and Emily Giffin.