Astonish Me (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780345804617)

From the New York Times bestselling author of Great Circle comes "a novel you must read" (The Washington Post) about a mother who is trying to forget her past as a young ballerina in Paris who fell into a passionate romance with a Soviet dance superstar.

For years Joan has been trying to find peace and satisfaction in her role as wife and mother. Few in her drowsy California suburb know her thrilling history: as a young American ballerina in Paris, she had a doomed affair with Soviet dance superstar Arslan Rusakov.

After playing a leading role in his celebrated defection, Joan bowed out of the spotlight for good, heartbroken by Arslan and humbled by her own modest career. But when her son turns out to be a ballet prodigy, Joan is pulled back into a world she thought she'd left behind--a world of dangerous secrets, of Arslan, and of longing for what will always be just out of reach.

"The inner lives of [Shipstead's] characters feel as real and immediate as the shifting settings they inhabit: still-gritty mid-1970s Manhattan, shabbily elegant Paris, the sunbaked suburban sprawl of Southern California." --Entertainment Weekly

Author: Maggie Shipstead
ISBN-10: 0345804619
ISBN-13: 9780345804617
Publisher: Vintage
Language: English
Published: 01/06/2015
Pages: 272
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.20w x 0.80d

Review Citation(s):
Entertainment Weekly 12/26/2014 pg. 111
People Weekly 01/05/2014 pg. 40