First edition hardback cover
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Author | Nicholas Sparks |
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Country | United States |
Language | English |
Genre | Drama Romance |
Publisher | Warner Books |
Publication date
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September 2002 |
Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
Pages | 240 |
ISBN | |
OCLC | 49576256 |
813/.54 21 | |
LC Class | PS3569.P363 N54 2002 |
Nights in Rodanthe is a romantic love novel by American writer Nicholas Sparks in September 2002.
Set in Rodanthe, North Carolina, the story follows the purely intense and close romance of a divorced mother, Adrienne Willis, and a divorced father and surgeon, Paul Flanner. The novel's two main protagonists meet in an inn in Rodanthe and fall strongly in love. However, fate and destiny falls upon them when they realize that leaving Rodanthe would mean going back to their separate lives.
Sparks based parts of his story on his own life's events, particularly his courting of the woman he married, Cathy Cote. Themes of genuine romantic love, and sacrifice are incorporated in the novel. Nights in Rodanthe was adapted into a 2008 film of the same name.
The story begins in 2002 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Adrienne Willis, a part-time librarian and divorced mother of three, is helping her daughter, Amanda, cope with depression. Amanda is having problems coping with the loss of her husband and is having difficulties raising her three children. In an effort to show that life goes on despite trying times, Adrienne tells her daughter the story of her relationship with Paul Flanner, whom she met in 1988.
Adrienne was abandoned for a younger woman by her husband. She parented their children alone and took care of her sick father. This had worn her down. So when an opportunity comes along to tend an inn in the small coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina for a friend, Adrienne decides to do it. As soon as she arrives, a major storm is forecast. Meanwhile, Paul, a fifty-four-year-old father, arrives in Rodanthe. He has sold his home and practice, and now wishes to travel to an isolated place where he can seek relief from his shattered life. A successful surgeon, he has recently divorced from his wife, and has had a patient die.
While the storm looms, the two characters, the only people at the inn, find compassion in one another and fall in love. After a few days, Adrienne and Paul slowly realize that once they leave, they must return to their separate lives. Paul explains a promise to join his estranged son in a medical clinic in Ecuador; eventually, he and Adrienne part. Adrienne returns to Rocky Mount. Paul heads for Ecuador. They communicate through letters, further fortifying their love. Paul, however, dies in Ecuador.