"ME FOR YOU"--in Lolly Winston's mid-life second-chance romance, a widower finds a new love, experiences a career change, and deals with life-changing revelations

Me for You


From the New York Times bestselling author of Good Grief comes a richly poignant and stirring story that asks: How soon is too soon to fall in love again?

The last thing Rudy expected was to wake up one Saturday morning, a widower at fifty-four years old. Now, ten months after the untimely death of his beloved wife, he’s still not sure how to move on from the defining tragedy of his life—but his new job is helping. After being downsized from his finance position, Rudy turned to his first love: the piano. Some people might be embarrassed to work as the piano player at Nordstrom, but for Rudy, there’s joy in bringing a little music into the world. And it doesn’t hurt that Sasha, the Hungarian men’s watch clerk who is finally divorcing her no-good husband, finds time to join him at the bench every now and then.

Just when Rudy and Sasha’s relationship begins to deepen, the police come to the store with an update about Rudy’s wife’s untimely death—a coworker has confessed to her murder—but Rudy’s actions are suspicious enough to warrant a second look at him, too. With Sasha’s husband suddenly reappearing, and Rudy’s daughter confronting her own marital problems, suddenly life becomes more complicated than Rudy and Sasha could have imagined.

With Winston’s trademark humor and sweetness that will appeal to readers of Jennifer Weiner and Fredrik Backman but is uniquely her own, Lolly Winston delivers a heartfelt and realistic portrait of loss and grief, hope and forgiveness, and two imperfect people coming together to create a perfect love story.

Reviews

 

"Okay, I'm a sucker for a love story. Add gut-busting humor, an unflinching examination of grief, and characters who walk straight into your heart and I'm wowed. Thank you, Lolly Winston." (Ellen Sussman, New York Times bestselling author of French Lessons)

“I loved this novel, an immensely readable, emotionally honest examination of the aftermath of grief and loss. Lolly Winston masterfully weaves humor with pathos in this story of second chances, all-too-human foibles, unlikely love, and an uplifting message of hope.”  (Susan Wiggs, New York Times bestselling author of Between You and Me)

"The story uses quiet prose and unexpected moments of gentle humor to illustrate the importance of human connection during trying times. … [A] poignant story about loss, unexpected connections, and the circuitous path toward healing.” (Kirkus Reviews)

"Lolly Winston has a masterful way of describing the nuanced, complicated feelings we all experience, but can’t always find words to explain. Me for You is a sensitive look at grief, mental health, and the courage it takes to love after loss.”
(Allie Larkin, internationally bestselling author of Swimming for Sunlight and Stay)

"Warm, witty, and wise, Me for You will delight Lolly Wiston's loyal following and earn her a whole new generation of fans. An exquisitely wrought window into an oft-ignored subject, mid-life love, and a reminder that grief and joy can live side by side. Fiction at its best shows us the light at the end of the tunnel; that light burns brightly here." (Michelle Richmond, New York Times bestselling author of The Marriage Pact)


Lolly Winston



Born and raised in the glamorous insurance capital of Hartford, Conn., Lolly Winston holds an MFA in creative writing from Sarah Lawrence College, where she wrote a collection of short stories as her thesis.

Her first novel, Good Grief, published in 2004, was a New York Times best-seller, a #1 Book Sense pick, and was translated into 15 languages. The film rights have been optioned by Universal Studios. Her second novel, Happiness Sold Separately, also hit the New York Times best seller list upon its publication in August 2006. Her short stories have appeared in The Sun, The Southeast Review, The Third Berkshire Anthology, Girls' Night Out and others. She's contributed essays to the anthologies Kiss Tomorrow Hello (Doubleday, 2006), and the forthcoming book Bad Girls.

Over the years, Lolly has floundered at a number of English major jobs, including: waitress (cork in your wine, anyone?), house cleaner, corporate copywriter, and corporate public relations manager. She's not proud of the fact that she flunked the math on the Kelly Girl test.

In the early eighties she went to Hawaii for eight days and stayed for eight years, boogie boarding and working as the public affairs officer at a local trauma hospital. She moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1993, where she finally quit the corporate world to become a freelance journalist, starting out as a stringer for Automotive News. She went on to write for the San Jose Mercury News Sunday magazine, New Woman, Redbook, Glamour, Family Circle, Working Mother, Sunset, Lifetime and others. She teaches writing classes in fiction, feature stories and the art of the personal essay.

A groupie at heart, her favorite authors include: Flannery O'Connor, Vladimir Nabokov, Tom Perrotta, Nick Hornby, Kate Atkinson, Walker Percy, Jeffrey Eugenides, Andrew Sean Greer, Mary Karr, George Saunders, Aimee Bender, Jane Austen, Dave Barry, David Sedaris, Andre Dubus III, Sylvia Plath, Raymond Carver, Ethan Canin, ZZ Packer, Jennifer Haigh, Edith Wharton, Jonathan Tropper, Amy Bloom, Christie Hodgen, Ellen Sussman, Jonathan Lethem, J.D. Salinger, Tobias Wolff, and Donald Barthelme.

She lives with her husband in Northern California. 

http://www.lollywinston.com/