Jenny Harris is a happy, well-adjusted young woman excitedly awaiting the birth of her first child. So what if her live-in fiance Dean has been avoiding helping her plan their wedding? And who cares if recently he seems overly preoccupied with work and his amateur band? Jenny, having listened to her mother and best friend complain about her fiance's lack of commitment for months, should have seen what was coming. Yet nothing could ever prepare her for the night he never comes home, instantly demoting himself from boyfriend to sperm donor. When she goes into labour the day after she's dumped, giving birth to a beautiful baby girl, Jenny has no choice but to forge ahead with her new life as a single mother. After countless sleepless nights and crying spells (both hers and the baby's), she is finally finding her way. She manages to find time to give dating tips to her father, who attempts to court her mother fifteen years after their divorce - and to explore a new relationship with the very handy and attractive man next door. But just as her desperation is ebbing, Dean reappears. Is first love worth a second chance, or is it wiser to hold out for something potentially better?
Katherine Center graduated from Vassar College, where she won the Vassar College Fiction Prize, and received an MA in fiction from the University of Houston. She served as fiction co-editor for the literary magazine Gulf Coast, and her graduate thesis, Peepshow, a collection of stories, was a finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. A former freelance writer and teacher, she lives in Houston with her husband and two young children.
