"Return to Cradle Lake" by Cynthia Thomason

When the life you know is over, can you go home to start again? This heartwarming and emotional story tells the journey of Grace Peyton who faces her biggest challenge when she returns to Kinsey Falls, Ohio, after twenty-four years. Her estranged husband, running for political office in the Peytons’ Ohio home district, has been in an automobile accident and is in a coma. Remaining by the bedside of the man who betrayed her, Grace confronts an uncertain future and a painful past. But it is when she comes face to face with Cal Westover, the man who broke her heart years ago and whom she has avoided for over two decades.that Grace realizes that her old love, her first love, never died and old sins must be forgiven – even her own. Can she follow her heart or will the secret she never told Cal destroy her chance for happiness?

My review:

You can't go home again. That's what we've always been told. But Grace finds in "Return to Cradle Lake" that you CAN go home again. And perhaps home has been waiting all along for you. Return to Cradle Lake is a well-written, emotional book about a long marriage that just "fizzled out", and a life-long love that hasn't. Cynthia Thompson has written a fantastic story of youth becoming maturing, forgiveness, self-discovery, and ultimately love in a small town. I loved the small town nuances she wrote into the story, with Friday night football games, the burger joint where the teenagers hang out, to the small town festival with concessions and crafters galore. All of this was underscored by Grace's guilt that she was rediscovering life while her husband was fighting for his life in a coma. The author wrote Alan's father as the man you love to hate; his mother as the typical snobby entitled socialite, who looked down on anything and everything Grace did; and Cal as the hometown hero who has continued to be the life line of many people in Kinsey Falls. And lets not forget Dottie, who was the voice of Grace's conscience and the voice of Grace's free spirit as she travelled the journey of discovering the next phase of her life. I greatly enjoyed my visit to Kinsey Falls and living a short time with the people around Cradle Lake

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