A page-turning, irresistible novel of class, ambition, and bisexuality, this is the breathtaking story of a woman risking everything for a second chance at her first love. Emily has, by all appearances, a beautiful life: a townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, two healthy children, and a husband who showers her with attention. But the truth is more complicated: Emily’s marriage is in trouble, her relationship with her parents is fraught, and she is still nursing a heartbreak from long ago. When Emily runs into her high school best friend, Gen, at a cocktail party, that heartbreak comes roaring back. But Gen Hall is no longer the lanky, hungry kid with holes in her shoes who Emily loved in her youth. Instead, Gen is now a prominent Olympic athlete with sponsorship deals and a string of high-profile ex-girlfriends. Emily and Gen circle one another cautiously, both drawn together by a magnetic attraction and scarred by their shared history. Once upon a time, Gen knew everything about Emily. And yet, she still abandoned her. Can Emily trust Gen again? Can they forgive each other for mistakes they made in their youth? Can Emily risk her children, her privacy, and the fragile peace she has found with her family just to be with a woman she loved long ago? A sweeping queer romance, <Ordinary Love< is the beautiful, wrenching, completely seductive story of two people trying to forge a path through fear, bound by a love they discovered when they were too young to understand its power.

Autorentext

MARIE RUTKOSKI is a New York Times bestselling author of books for children and young adults, including The Winner’s Curse. She published her first novel for adults, Real Easy, in 2022. Rutkoski is a professor of English literature at Brooklyn College and lives in Brooklyn with her family.

Klappentext

"Emily has, by all appearances, a beautiful life: a townhouse on Manhattan's Upper East Side, two healthy children, and a husband who showers her with attention. But the truth is more complicated: Emily's marriage is in trouble, her relationship with her parents is fraught, and she is still nursing a heartbreak from long ago. When Emily runs into her high school best friend Gen at a cocktail party, that heartbreak comes roaring back. But Gen Hall is no longer the lanky, hungry kid with holes in her shoes who Emily loved in her youth. Instead, Gen is now a prominent Olympic athlete with sponsorship deals and a string of high-profile ex-girlfriends. Emily and Gen circle one another cautiously, both drawn together by a magnetic attraction and scarred by their shared history"--

Zusammenfassung
A page-turning, irresistible novel of class, ambition, and love, this is the breathtaking story of a woman risking everything for a second chance at the one who got away • "A brilliant examination of queerness, friendship, motherhood, longing and ambition. It’s funny and moving and sexy. Above all, it’s a stunning love story.”—J. Courtney Sullivan, bestselling author of The Cliffs

Emily has, by all appearances, a perfect life: a townhouse on Manhattan’s Upper East Side, two healthy children, and a husband who showers her with attention. But the truth is more complicated: Emily’s marriage is in trouble, her relationship with her parents is fraught, and she is still nursing a heartbreak from long ago. When Emily runs into her high school girlfriend at a cocktail party, that heartbreak comes roaring back. But Gen Hall is no longer the lanky, hungry kid with holes in her shoes who Emily loved in her youth. Instead, Gen is now a famous Olympic athlete with sponsorship deals and a string of high-profile ex-girlfriends.

Emily and Gen circle one another cautiously, drawn together by a magnetic attraction and scarred by their shared history. Once upon a time, Gen knew everything about Emily. And yet, she still abandoned her. Can Emily trust Gen again? Can they forgive each other for the mistakes they made in their past? Should Emily risk her children, her privacy, and the fragile peace she has found to be with a woman she loved long ago?

A sweeping romance, Ordinary Love is the beautiful, wrenching, completely seductive story of two people trying to forge a path toward hope, bound by a love they discovered when they were too young to understand its power.

Leseprobe
The earth was full of stones but she liked prying them out of the ground. Emily’s gardening knife scraped their edges. Some stones were flat and could be added to the rock wall bordering the property; others had set their long, sharp teeth deep into the dirt. She wiggled rocks out of place but stopped when she heard the distant splash of the children.

Their voices were happy. She didn’t want to overreact. Jack said she always overreacted. She stifled the instinct to go around the house to the backyard and scold the children for swimming without an adult present. She didn’t want to be an oppressive mother. They were good swimmers. If they needed her, she was close by. It’s crazy, Jack often said, the way parents constantly monitor their kids. It wasn’t like this a generation ago. Let them play.

They had tolerated the traffic on the drive upstate, had tolerated Jack waking them early on a Saturday. He had carried them down the staircase of their Upper East Side town house, one sleepy child in each arm. Stella’s dreaming mouth was open as she rested her strawberry-­blond head on Jack’s shoulder. Connor was too big, really, to be carried, his long, thin legs knocking loosely against Jack’s strong ones as the trio descended the stairs. Jack’s smile was contented and proud, as though this moment with his children in his arms was a long hike with a vista at its end. “You can eat breakfast in the car,” he had told them, “and jump right into the pool when we get there. This might be the last warm day of fall, so let’s enjoy it.” Connor and Stella had flung themselves from the car, slammed through the pool gate, and jumped off the diving board. Emily’s dive was a clean slice. Jack chose not to swim. He went into the guesthouse, crowbar in hand.

That was hours ago. Emily set a daffodil bulb into the pocket left in the ground by a rock, pushed dirt into the cavity, and straightened. The splashing on the far side of the main house grew louder. Earlier, Connor and Stella had gone inside, teeth chattering, to change into last year’s Halloween costumes: a pirate for Connor and a pink cat for Stella. Now, though, they called to each other over the slap and scatter of water.

Unable to ignore her unease, Emily set down the gardening knife and stepped out from under the maple. She walked toward the backyard. A bird sang. Her pace quickened.

No one had wanted to go upstate except for Jack. He had work to do, he said. There was a leak in the roof of the guesthouse: a yellow stain on the ceiling. Last weekend Jack had broken into the drywall to find dead chipmunks that had eaten through the fluffy pink insulation and clawed the studs. He removed their carcasses from the holes he had made and took photos of their brown husks, their big teeth. He made the children come look and placed a skeleton into Connor’s open hand. “See what they did to our house?”

“Not our house,” Connor said. “The guesthouse.”

“I’m going to get them,” Jack said. “Every last one.”

“Bad guests!” said Stella.

“Exactly.” Jack boosted Stella so that she could peer into the ceiling’s hole, insulation pulled from its gut like intestine. “Bad guests!”

“We could hire someone,” Emily said, not hopeful. When Jack began a project he finished it.

“Why, when I can do it mysel…