num_pages: 327
description: Julia and Michael meet in high school in their small poverty-stricken West Virginia hometown. Both products of difficult childhoods -- Julias father is a compulsive gambler and Michaels mother abandoned his family when he was a young boy  they find a sense of safety and mutual understanding in each other. Shortly after graduation they flee West Virginia to start afresh. Now thirty-somethings they are living a rarified life in their multi-million-dollarWashington D.C. home. From the outside it all looks perfect  Julia has become a highly sought-after party planner while Michael has launched a wildly successful flavored water company that he sold for $70 million. But one day Michael stands up at the head of the table in his company's boardroom -- then silently crashes to the floor. More than four minutes later a portable defibrillator manages to jump-start his heart. Yet what happened to Michael during those lost minutes forever changes him. Money is meaningless to him now - and he wants to give it all away to charity. A prenuptial agreement that Julia insisted upon back when Michael's company was still struggling means she has no claim to his fortune and now she must decide: should she walk away from the man she once adored but who truthfully became a stranger to her long before his near-death experience - or should she give in to her husband's pleas for a second chance and a promise of a poorer but happier life?
language: English
title: Skipping a Beat
publisher: Washington Square Press