Pages for You Series by Sylvia Brownrigg

In a steam-filled diner in a college town, Flannery Jansen catches sight of something more beautiful than she's ever seen: a graduate student, reading. The seventeen-year-old, new to everything around her—college, the East Coast, bodies of literature, and the sexual flurries of student life—is shocked by her desire to follow this wherever it will take her... moreIn a steam-filled diner in a college town, Flannery Jansen catches sight of something more beautiful than she's ever seen: a graduate student, reading. The seventeen-year-old, new to everything around her—college, the East Coast, bodies of literature, and the sexual flurries of student life—is shocked by her desire to follow this wherever it will take her. When Flannery finds herself enrolled in a class with the remote, brilliant older woman, she is intimidated at first, but gradually becomes Anne Arden's student—Baudelaire, lipstick colors, or how to travel with a lover—Flannery proves an eager pupil, until one day learns more about Anne than she ever wanted to know. less

Pages for Her is the story of two women, Flannery and Anne, each at a personal turning point, and the circumstances that lead to their reunion. Twenty years after their brief but passionate affair, chronicled in Brownrigg’s earlier novel Pages for You, Flannery has the chance once again to meet Anne, who opened young Flannery up to the possibility of love—then left her heartbroken.Having long ago put their love behind them, they live now on opposite coasts... morePages for Her is the story of two women, Flannery and Anne, each at a personal turning point, and the circumstances that lead to their reunion. Twenty years after their brief but passionate affair, chronicled in Brownrigg’s earlier novel Pages for You, Flannery has the chance once again to meet Anne, who opened young Flannery up to the possibility of love—then left her heartbroken.Having long ago put their love behind them, they live now on opposite coasts. Anne has been in a deep, childless partnership with a fellow scholar Jasper, who recently left her. Flannery, to her own surprise, married a charismatic artist named Charles, with whom she has a young daughter. Submerged by her husband’s demands and personality and her adjustment to motherhood, Flannery has lost sight of her self and her work. When the two women meet at a conference, they find that the passion and understanding between them has endured, though it has been hidden. In rediscovering each other, they are able to rediscover themselves.Pages for Her is an exhilarating, passionate work that explores marriage, sexuality, and the transformative power of love over time.Advance Praise for Pages for Her“[Sylvia Brownrigg] approaches her characters with clarity and sensitivity, capturing the nuances in the women's relationships to the people they love—as mother, daughter, sister, friend, wife, or lover—and the power they give those people to define and inspire them. . . . Brownrigg considers motherhood, romance, identity, and the changes brought by time in this tender, insightful novel.” —Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review!)“With Pages for Her, Sylvia Brownrigg has achieved the seemingly impossible, a gorgeous and piercing book that is both a huge gift to the many readers who loved its predecessor Pages for You and an exquisitely intelligent stand-alone novel about the intertwined arcs of time and love.” —Ann Packer, New York Times bestselling author of The Children’s Crusade“Sylvia Brownrigg’s Pages for Her is a complex portrait of two women's sexuality. In the romantic universe of Brownrigg’s novel, there is no either/or, no simple black and white. When characters—read people—are freed from the often blinding forces of personal obligation and private loss, a lust for intimacy takes over. In Pages for Her, Brownrigg gives us two accomplished women who, coming together after decades apart, understand that truth laid bare is best beguiled.” —Alice Sebold, author of The Almost Moon and The Lovely Bones“With Pages for Her, Brownrigg does open-heart surgery, probing the deep chamber where unfinished love resides, untouchable by time, still beating.” —Carol Anshaw, author of Carry the One“In this intense, compelling novel, Sylvia Brownrigg writes vividly about passion rekindled in midlife with the force of a tsunami. Pages for Her, the sequel to Pages for You, stands as a beautiful testament to human complexity, reminding us that fierce love comes in many forms, none of them mutually exclusive.” —Claire Messud, author of The Burning Girl “Pages for Her takes on all the Big Questions in women’s lives: what it means to have ‘enough’ in love, sex, work, motherhood; what we deserve; what we long for; how we get trapped; how we can break free. I found myself reading with pen in hand, compelled to underline both Brownrigg’s gorgeous prose and her astute insights.” —Peggy Orenstein, author of Girls & Sex: Navigating the Complicated New Landscape “In elegant, graceful prose, Sylvia Brownrigg glides in and out of the lives of two women: Flannery, a writer married to a bombastic artist who values her beauty more than her mind; and Anne, an academic nearly a decade older whose decision not to have a child ends to her long-term relationship. Many years ago, these women shared a once-in-a-lifetime passion. Now, brought together serendipitously, they are surprised to discover [find] that time has done little to squelch [tamp down] desire. Nuanced, assured, and razor-sharp, Pages for Her is both a bittersweet story about rekindled love and a profound meditation on what it means to be alive.” —Christina Baker Kline, New York Times bestselling author of Orphan Train less