Excerpt from Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He is truly an extraordinary person in many ways, even in the eyes of his wife. Jorie Ford gazes at her husband the way another woman might appraise the sunrise, with equal amounts of familiarity and awe. She had wished their son would resemble Ethan, but Collie Ford is pale and fine-featured, like his mother, with blond hair and blue eyes and a sweet, cautious nature. Collie is cool where his father is hot, easy-going and, at twelve, tall for his age. Still, he's shy in spite of his parents' love and support; he's prone to let other boys edge right past him, at school and on the playing field, even though he has more brains and talent; it makes no difference that he's bigger and stronger; he's content to remain on the sidelines. He's an A student happy with Bs, an outfielder who should be pitching, too good-natured, it sometimes seems, for the deceptions and the difficulties of those who excel in the world.

You know what his problem is? Ethan says as they lie in bed on this morning with the window shades drawn up and the bees in the garden drifting over blooming roses and phlox. Jorie is eating a strawberry and it has turned her mouth red. You baby him.

Oh, please. Jorie laughs. You're just jealous. You want me to baby you.

That's true. Ethan slides his hand between her legs and she feels those pangs begin. Baby me, he tells her, so near that every word burns. Give me what I want.

Jorie thinks of lily of the valley, hyacinths, star-of-Bethlehem. She thinks of the night they had made Collie, a starry August evening at Charlotte's family's vacation house at Squam Lake. Jorie is sure her son was conceived there because a big white moon rose into the sky, a lantern in all that darkness, and she had cried when they made love. Afterward, she had stood out on the porch while Ethan slept and as she searched out the first summer star, she'd made a wish that things would never change between them.

I have to get going, Jorie says now, pushing him away. She feels absolutely derelict to still be in bed at this hour. I'm so late, Charlotte will kill me.

Jorie rises and stands squarely in the sunlight, her long hair turning from gold to platinum. She has never lived anywhere but Monroe, nor would she want to, even though this is a town in which there are more apple trees than there are houses. She had once believed she could predict exactly how her life would turn out, but then she met Ethan. There were several local boys who'd been after her, and she'd imagined that someday she'd give in and marry one of them. She still feels sheepish when she runs into Rick Moore, who she dated all through college. But bygones are bygones, and Rick himself is married now, with two boys of his own, and he teaches over at the middle school, science and health. Why, Collie will probably be in his class next year. There are no hard feelings, and when they meet accidentally, on Front Street or at the annual Little League barbecue at the end of the season, Rick and Jorie are always polite; they hug each other and pretend that neither one remembers the way Rick cried when Jorie broke up with him.

Time has drifted by lazily, and Jorie is amazed to see just how late it is. There won't be much headway on the Starks' construction today; no plumbing will be installed and no measurements for the new tub will be taken. By now Mark Derry has grown tired of waiting and has decided to leave a note for Ethan on the back door. Hey, asshole--where the hell were you? is the message Sophie Stark, aged twelve, will find tacked up when she gets home from school.

In point of fact, Ethan is getting dressed at the very moment Mark Derry is pounding his missive into place, using a nail he'd found in the dirt, used to add iron to the soil and encourage the hydrangeas to turn a deep indigo. Ethan Ford has never been one to rush, not even when he's late. He takes his time and knows what he wants. He believes it's his duty to live his life in the right way, and he never grouses when emergency calls come in on cold, icy nights. If he's old-fashioned, so be it. He figures he owes something to his neighbors. He has never once turned down a friend when asked for a loan; Mark Derry and Warren Peck both know from personal experience that when Ethan writes a check he doesn't even ask what the advance is for. Trying to thank him for all the good he's done is another matter entirely. He flatly refused a public ceremony after he'd rescued the McConnell girl, which would have greatly pleased the mayor, Ed Hill, who's always looking for a chance to promote his own favorite cause: a third term in office. Ethan is known for the sort of conviction only a man who's been blessed can possess. What can he want, when there's nothing he's lacking? Why should he rush through this life, when he's lucky enough to have everything that he needs? He runs one hand through his dark hair now as he gets ready, without bothering to look in the mirror. He knows who he is, after all. Lucky as a man can be, that's Ethan. Lucky, through and through.

Reprinted from Blue Diary by Alice Hoffman by permission of G.P. Putnam’s Sons, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 2001 by Alice Hoffman. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.