Slow Dance: A Novel
Description
From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Eleanor & Park and Attachments comes Slow Dance—a bright, beaming power ballad of a novel about a love so true it refuses to be forgotten.
Back in high school, everybody thought Shiloh and Cary would end up together . . . everybody but Shiloh and Cary.
They were just friends. Best friends. Allies. They spent entire summers sitting on Shiloh’s porch steps, dreaming about the future. They were both going to get out of north Omaha—Shiloh would go to go to college and become an actress, and Cary would join the Navy. They promised each other that their friendship would never change.
Well, Shiloh did go to college, and Cary did join the Navy. And yet, somehow, everything changed.
Now Shiloh’s thirty-three, and it’s been fourteen years since she talked to Cary. She’s been married and divorced. She has two kids. And she’s back living in the same house she grew up in. Her life is nothing like she planned.
When she’s invited to an old friend’s wedding, all Shiloh can think about is whether Cary will be there—and whether she hopes he will be. Would Cary even want to talk to her? After everything?
The answer is yes. And yes. And yes.
Slow Dance is the story of two kids who fell in love before they knew enough about love to recognize it. Two friends who lost everything. Two adults who just feel lost.
It’s the story of Shiloh and Cary, who everyone thought would end up together, trying to find their way back to the start.
Praise for Slow Dance: A Novel
“Who can deny the absolute, dizzy pleasure of loving a novel so much that you cannot bear to put it down, that you want to do nothing but keep flipping pages, that you want to immerse yourself fully and not come up for air until you are finished. I read Slow Dance in just that way, breathless and weeping. There is no one better than Rainbow at creating flawed, deeply human people. I loved every page of Slow Dance, a book that is romantic to its core, and as funny and smart as its wonderful characters.”
— Emma Straub, New York Times bestselling author
“Deeply human, profoundly romantic. Rowell tackles the challenges of love lost and rediscovered with nuance and candor. She will break your heart and you’ll thank her for it.”
— Leigh Bardugo, New York Times bestselling author
"Rich, real, and emotionally raw, this satisfying contemporary is sure to impress." — Publishers Weekly
“Rowell pulls off this impossible premise with great charm, and her depictions of the couple’s sweet courtship and their later compromise-filled marriage are equally unsentimental and knowing.” — The New Yorker on Landline
“Rowell is talented enough to be uncategorizable. . . . Landline belongs to a genre of its very own.” — New York Times
"Her writing swings from profane to profound, but it’s always real and always raw.” — NPR on Eleanor & Park
“The funny, wised-up dialogue, the tumultuous, sweet, and sexy love story is grade-A Rowell . . . a book that readers will find almost impossible to put down.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) on Carry On
“Perfectly mixing sweet romance with deliciously tart wit, Rowell’s literary debut is a complete charmer.” — Chicago Tribune on Attachments
