In her most ambitious novel to date, New York Times

bestselling author Joyce Maynard returns to the themes that are the hallmarks

of her most acclaimed work in a mesmerizing story of a family—from the hopeful

early days of young marriage to parenthood, divorce, and the costly aftermath

that ripples through all their lives

Eleanor and Cam meet at a crafts

fair in Vermont in the early 1970s. She’s an artist and writer, he makes wooden

bowls. Within four years they are parents to three children, two daughters and

a red-headed son who fills his pockets with rocks, plays the violin and talks

to God. To Eleanor, their New Hampshire farm provides everything she always

wanted—summer nights watching Cam’s softball games, snow days by the fire and

the annual tradition of making paper boats and cork people to launch in the

brook every spring. If Eleanor and Cam don’t make love as often as they used

to, they have something that matters more. Their family.

Then comes a

terrible accident, caused by Cam’s negligence. Unable to forgive him, Eleanor

is consumed by bitterness, losing herself in her life as a mother, while Cam

finds solace with a new young partner.

Over the decades

that follow, the five members of this fractured family make surprising

discoveries and decisions that occasionally bring them together, and often tear

them apart. Tracing the course of their lives—through the gender transition of

one child and another’s choice to completely break with her mother—Joyce

Maynard captures a family forced to confront essential, painful truths of its

past, and find redemption in its darkest hours.

A story of holding

on and learning to let go, Count the Ways is an achingly beautiful,

poignant, and deeply compassionate novel of home, parenthood, love, and

forgiveness.