E-Book Extra: Afterword by Patricia Gaffney: "A Woman Is Her Mother"Newly widowed, Carrie is overwhelmed by the guilt of knowing her marriage died long before her husband's fatal heart attack. Struggling to go on for the sake of her teenaged daughter, Ruth, and her overly possessive mother, Dana, Carrie slowly emerges from the sorrow that has embraced her and begins to pull her life together, with help from an unexpected source. Jess, Carrie's first love, re-enters her world and offers her the lifeline that will help her pull herself out of the drowning place she's been in.Inspired with new purpose, and a passion she thought she'd never have again, Carrie must find a way to weave her new life -- and love -- into a family struggling with their own pain and disappointment, who find her newfound happiness a threat to their own precarious balance.Wise, moving, and heartbreakingly real, Circle of Three offers women a deeper understanding of one another, of themselves, and of the perplexing and invigorating magic that is life itself.
Patricia Gaffney was born on December 27 in Tampa, Florida, and grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, a suburb of Washington, D.C. She earned a bachelor's degree in English and philosophy from Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, and also studied literature at Royal Holloway College of the University of London, at George Washington University, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. After college, Gaffney taught 12th grade English for a year before becoming a freelance court reporter, a job shepursued in North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C., for the next fifteen years.
Her first book, a historical romance, was published by Dorchester in 1989. Between then and 1997, she wrote 11 more romance novels (Dorchester; PenguinUSA), for which she was nominated for or won many awards.
In 1999, she went in a new direction with her hardcover fiction debut, The Saving Graces (HarperCollins). A contemporary story about four women friends, the novel explored issues of love, friendship, trust, and commitment among women. The Saving Graces enjoyed bestseller status on theNew York Times, Publishers Weekly, USA Today, and other lists. Circle of Three (2000), Flight Lessons (2002), and The Goodbye Summer (2004) followed,all national bestsellers.
Patricia Gaffney lives in southern Pennsylvania with her husband.
