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Published WorkOn a Night Like This
They met in high school, but had nothing in common: Blair Clemens, the weird hippie-chick who kept to herself, and Luke Bellingham, the golden boy--rich, handsome, and destined for greatness. Now, years later, Luke has fulfilled his early promise and is one of the country's most acclaimed screenwriters. Blair is a struggling single mother with a teenage daughter, a job as a chef, and a tragic secret that will test all of her emotional resources. Still as feisty and as offbeat as ever, Blair loves no one other than her daughter and she intends to keep things that way. That is, until she crosses paths once again with Luke Bellingham. Now, Blair is faced with the decision of her lifetime: what to do when the right man comes along...but at the wrong time.
Take a deceived man who thinks he doesn't want to live, and introduce him to a woman who thinks that if she has enough sex she might not have to die, add a good kid and a great dog, a wicked humor and a clean prose style and you have a novel that's hard not to read in one sitting. — Pam Houston, Cowboys Are My Weakness On a Night Like This is thoughtful, graceful and poignant, full of tenderness and toughness, blessed by a powerful sense of place, balancing the redemption of love against the terror of illness. Ellen Sussman eloquently takes on the twists and turns of real people in complex relationships - mother/daughter, lovers, friends - in this page turning novel. I couldn't put the book down, cheering Blair on every step of the way. — Lalita Tademy, Cane River and Red River Like all compelling fiction, On a Night Like This is funny and sad and true. Blair Clemens is a complex heroine, today's answer to Love Story's Jenny Cavilleri. I couldn't stop reading from first page to last. — Katharine Weber, The Little Women Ellen Sussman's San Francisco is moody, lovely, and tattered around the edges, like the two heroines of her magical debut, On a Night Like This. — Amanda Eyre Ward, Sleep Towards Heaven and How To Be Lost From the first few extraordinary pages of On a Night Like This, I was completely sucked into this book. Ellen Sussman's characters are vivid, contemporary and compelling, true to their off-beat lives and to their own definition of love and family. The relationship between the mother and the daughter is particularly moving, heartbreaking and hopeful at the same time. I felt myself rooting for the characters until the very last page. — Lian Dolan, Satellite Sisters Ellen Sussman's beautiful novel offers readers the best of both worlds - gorgeous prose with a page-turner plot. The characters are so real and funny and smart and sad that I felt I could reach into the pages and touch them. While Blair's secret is heartbreaking, by some miracle the end of this story is reassuringly peaceful, and even happy. I found great solace within these pages.
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