The Summerhouse by Jude Deveraux is one of her older books that somehow I had managed to miss reading until very recently.

Three friends who met on their shared 21st birthday decide to meet up again on their 40th birthday at The Summerhouse.  Over the last nineteen years their lives have taken very different paths and none of them are entirely happy with where they are at this stage of their lives.  But that is about to change...

Leslie Headrick had just jilted a man and moved to New York to pursue a dance career when she met Madison Appleby and Ellie Abbott at the New York Department of Motor Vehicles.  Nineteen years later she was married that to that same man with two children.  But she is far from happy and suspects her husband is seeing another woman.

Madison Appleby was determined to be a model and after being dumped by her prejudiced boyfriend had also travelled to New York to seek her fame and fortune.  Now at forty years of age she too has found herself married to her ex who had come back into her life following an accident.  The sole carer for her husband she too is not happy at being taken for granted and the treatment of her by the whole of his family.

Ellie Abbott had moved to New York to become an artist but at forty had put her own career on hold to support her husband.  Though she had made a success of herself as a Writer a horrific divorce has left her with nothing and she too has regrets about her decisions.

But for each of them the mysterious Madame Zoya has the offer of a lifetime.  What if they could go back and change their destiny?  What if they had a chance to alter their lives forever?

Each woman is offered the chance to go back in time and relive any three week period from their past.  With full knowledge of the future they are given the chance to chase after the dream that got away.

For Leslie the three week period she chooses is the college break when she turned down an invitation from a young man who would go on to run for president.  But will a life with him be better than the life she had with Alan or not?

Madison chooses to go back to the day the three friends met and change the course of her career by using knowledge of the future.  Most importantly though she doesn't want to go running back to Roger as she knows the treatment she will receive if she does.

For Ellie the weeks she wants to relive are those of the divorce.  With the advance knowledge of how her ex-husband is going to cheat her out of everything she is determined to make sure that it does not happen again.

And at the end of the three week period each woman will have to make the biggest decisions of their lives.  Do they keep the new lives or go back to the old ones?  And will they choose to remember their alternate paths or not?

This is like having three stories in one and each is an engrossing as the others.  It is also a story that makes you think.  After all, if you were given the chance to relive three weeks of your life, which three weeks would you choose?  Would you chase the dream that got away...?

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Also by Jude Deveraux :  A Knight in Shining Armor, Legend and  Remembrance