THE ROAD TO EDEN'S RIDGE

Lindsey Briggs leaves her fiancé at the altar in her small Maine town and heads for Nashville to pursue her lifelong dream of being a country singer–songwriter in this quietly sentimental novel. After burying her musical inclinations under a Harvard education, 20-something Lindsey experiences an epiphany less than an hour before her wedding, standing in front of the mirror and listening to a recording of herself singing a song she'd written half a lifetime before. She packs up her car and heads south, away from Eden's Ridge and the grandmother who raised her after her parents were killed in a car accident when she was a baby. Once in Nashville, armed with a guitar and a band of new friends, Lindsey encounters Ben McBride, the country singer who once visited her grandfather 50 years ago at his farm in Maine, and of whom she has an old photograph, a reminder of her grandfather's past and her own. What Lindsey doesn't know is the extent of McBride's involvement with her family and the secrets buried in her own life. Rose is the pseudonym for Myra McLary (Water in the Well) and Linda Weeks, who together breathe realism into their settings and life into their characters. Lindsey's lyrics, contributed by Nashville songwriters, leave depth and subtlety to be desired, but her passion for living and need to follow her heart make her a character with whom women readers will easily identify. Agent, Jane Chelius. (July 15)

Forecast:The book has been optioned for a film, but more immediate marketing plans target country music fans: Lindsey's lyrics are being set to music for ads on country stations.