The First Time

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Now in available in trade paperback from New York Times bestselling and award-winning author Joy Fielding—an exquisitely moving story of a marriage at a crossroads, and an estranged husband and wife’s discovery of what love really means.

After sixteen years of marriage, Mattie Hart discovers that her husband, Jake—a high-profile Chicago attorney—is involved in yet another love affair. But a far greater crisis descends upon the Hart family after Jake leaves home: Mattie receives devastating news that will alter their lives. Wracked by guilt, Jake returns to the wife he has never really loved and the teenage daughter who wants nothing to do with him. Here, in these most unexpected of circumstances, Joy Fielding deftly ushers her characters through a poignant drama about love’s astonishing power to heal the deepest wounds.

In this dazzling novel, Joy Fielding expands the scope of her storytelling as never before. The First Time is "a human drama that celebrates life and love...a marvelous story that will leave you cheering, even as you examine your own life and priorities" (Romantic Times).

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Book details:

Pocket Books |
400 pages |
ISBN 9781439108987 |
June 2009

$15.00 List Price

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Praise

“

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“Every line rings true.”

– The Orlando Sentinel (FL)

“A tonic account of how one woman discovers her truest self in the face of supreme disaster.”

– Kirkus Reviews

“After a long string of successful romantic suspense novels, Joy Fielding gives us something different, a human drama that celebrates life and love. Although you will need a box of Kleenex ready, this marvelous story will leave you... ”

– Romantic Times

“This is rich stuff....Fielding has created an adept study of three flawed characters who, after years of playing head games, must learn how to communicate....Fielding has again pushed a seemingly fragile heroine to the brink, only... ”

– Booklist

“[An] affecting drama....Fielding is good at chronicling the messy tangle of family relationships....A three-tissue finale.”

– Publishers Weekly

“Dramatic and heartrending...the emotions are almost tangible.”

– Richmond Times-Dispatch (VA)

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Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

She was thinking of ways to kill her husband.

Martha Hart, called Mattie by everyone but her mother, who regularly insisted Martha was a perfectly lovely name -- "You don't see Martha Stewart changing her name, do you?" -- was swimming back and forth across the long, rectangular pool that occupied most of her spacious backyard. Mattie swam every morning from the beginning of May until mid-October, barring lightning or an early Chicago snowfall, fifty minutes, one hundred lengths of precisely executed breaststroke and front crawl, back and forth across the well-heated forty-foot expanse. Usually she was in the...