The Deep End

This novel probes the attachments that can make or break us: attachments to day jobs, to family, to childhood places-and to the lover right in front of us. Above all, it's about love: the heady spell when we fall for another person, and the tougher days that unmask our souls.Dave Moore, 41, is doing just great at all the things he never wanted to do, like working as a bureaucrat in L.A. while his musical dream slowly dies. That's when he falls hard for witty, gorgeous co-worker Maggie Taylor, whose uncertain psyche matches his own.George Stone, 13, is Dave's pubescent nephew in Southern Ontario, a plucky schoolkid with an over-structured life.These worlds meet on an island in Muskoka, where Dave and Maggie join George's family in an attempt to summon the mythic cottage past. But Maggie has other things on her mind-such as the present. Beset by chamber pots, uptight relatives, and Dave's wounded soul, will she refuse to join him in his quest?Our characters return to their respective cites, and gradually their various attachments close in and corner them. The stakes could not be higher.

Breezy and romantic at the start, this novel soon heads for darker places.