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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.
"Rowell takes her time revealing the couple's origins as high-school besties, the conflicts they helped each other through as teens in working-class families and those they're dealing with now, the long period of silence between them, and the undeniable glimmers of their enduring mutual attraction. Their dance is sweet and sexy, and Rowell draws out the whole, simmering affair as she ping-pongs through her characters' past and present... . [Slow Dance is] sure to be a crowd-pleaser." —Booklist (starred review)
"Rich, real, and emotionally raw, this satisfying contemporary is sure to impress." —Publishers Weekly
"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
"If you, like me, think thirty-somethings methodically working through their issues is very hot, Slow Dance is the book for you. The people in it feel like people you know or may even people you've been. Slow Dance is sexy, sweet, wise, and nostalgic – Jane Austen's Persuasion for our times." —Gabrielle Zevin, New York Times bestselling author of Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow
"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
This information about Slow Dance was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: Augusten Burroughs
Sometimes Rainbow Rowell writes about adults (Attachments and Landline).
Sometimes she writes about teenagers (Eleanor & Park, Fangirl and Carry On).
But she always writes about people who talk a lot. And people who feel like they're screwing up. And people who fall in love.
When she's not writing, Rainbow is reading comic books, planning Disney World trips and arguing about things that don't really matter in the big scheme of things.
She lives in Nebraska with her husband and two sons.
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