Julia and Michael meet in high school in their small, poverty-stricken West Virginia hometown. Both products of difficult childhoods — Julia’s father is a compulsive gambler and Michael’s mother abandoned his family when he was a young boy – they find a sense of safety and mutual understanding in each other. Shortly after graduation they flee West Virginia to start afresh. Now thirty-somethings, they are living a rarified life in their multi-million-dollar,Washington D.C. home. From the outside it all looks perfect – Julia has become a highly sought-after party planner, while Michael has launched a wildly successful flavored water company that he sold for $70 million.
But one day Michael stands up at the head of the table in his company’s boardroom — then silently crashes to the floor. More than four minutes later, a portable defibrillator manages to jump-start his heart. Yet what happened to Michael during those lost minutes forever changes him. Money is meaningless to him now - and he wants to give it all away to charity. A prenuptial agreement that Julia insisted upon back when Michael’s company was still struggling means she has no claim to his fortune, and now she must decide: should she walk away from the man she once adored, but who truthfully became a stranger to her long before his near-death experience - or should she give in to her husband’s pleas for a second chance and a promise of a poorer but happier life?

What happens when life gives you an opportunity to fall in love all over again with your first love? Do you take it? Or do years of resentment and distance make it too painful to go back? These are the exact questions Julia faces when her multi-million dollar husband suddenly dies in the middle of a board meeting. After regaining consciousness Michael is completely changed, wanting to leave his life of success behind and focus on what he’s rediscovered. His love for Julia. Will it be enough? Only time will tell if money is more important than love.

Having not read Sarah Pekkanen’s first novel, The Opposite of Me, I am now quickly rushing to my local bookstore to pick it up. Pekkanen has easily proved that she is here to stay in the literary world with her follow-up novel, Skipping A Beat. The writing was so incredibly impressive. What I enjoyed most about it was perhaps the weaving of the past and the present to create an entire picture without feeling lost in between. Somehow, without feeling like a “flashback” you would be suddenly transported to another time and place; often it was one that had been visited earlier in the story, but with a new perspective and more details. In addition to the storytelling there were also layers of meaning and purpose that each of the characters shared that made this story more than a simple love story. In the end it boiled down to love, but it was so much more than that and I adored it.

With incredible writing and wonderful characters it was nice to also have an original story. Who doesn’t think about what it would be like to have millions of dollars? To no longer have to worry about the “bottom dropping out”? For Julia that was even more of a reality than ever with a father who had a habitual gambling problem. To know what it’s like to have absolutely nothing then suddenly have more than you could ever imagine and later to have it questionably taken away. It definitely makes you question what you value in life and it was interesting to see how Julia came to that conclusion as well. As her story progressed she revealed layer after layer of herself, slowly challenging herself to take a leap on the most difficult thing ever. Michael’s side was a much quieter unraveling, but intriguing nonetheless. Could you give up a life of wealth and nearly endless riches just because of a near death experience? It’s an unbelievable situation, but perfect for the story.

Not only was the primary storyline extremely thought provoking, but the secondary line with Julia’s best friend Isabelle was also refreshing. It’s not often you have an honest and intelligent wealthy single woman in a story. I get tired of constantly reading and watching stereotypical wealthy women who are obsessed with things and looks. Isabelle was, but not to the extent that she lost who she truly was at her core. Of course I’m pretty sure that had a lot to do with who she was in her younger years, but I don’t want to spoil the story. I just have to say I adored Isabelle and wish every woman had a friend who was equally caring and understanding.

Perhaps what I appreciated the most about Skipping A Beat was how easy it was to connect with Julia’s character. Not only for myself, but I feel like nearly anyone reading this story could relate at some level. Because Julia and Michael’s story truly began when they initially met in high school and carried forward into their adulthood you could almost drop yourself into whatever set of circumstances matched up with your own. Granted, I don’t anticipate many multi-millionaires reading and relating to it, but you never know! For me though, a wife and mother with a husband struggling to make a way in the beginnings of life, it was easy to relate to that initial stage, the anticipatory one. The stage where you know you have so much ahead of you and so much hope for the future. What Julia & Michael’s story does though, is make you think…is it really the success that matters? Is it really the money? For me, it’s definitely not. Yes, it would be nice to have the fancy things, the nice home & new cars, but that’s not what truly matters. And I love that this book got to the heart of that. That it made me think. It helped me to remember to value the things most important, my family and the love we have for each other.

Discover what it means to be wealthy, in all the best ways…in friends, in family, in trust & honesty, and in love. Sarah Pekkanen’s follow-up novel to The Opposite of Me is nothing short of a stand out novel. Skipping A Beat gets to the heart of what it means to be successful by stripping away, layer by layer, those walls we put up to guard ourselves against the pain. Make sure you have tissues on hand and possibly even a tub of Breyers chocolate ice cream to make the reading of this incredible story all that more enjoyable. An absolutely brilliant novel about what matters most in life…love.

Thank you so much to the publisher, Simon & Schuster, for providing a copy for review!

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