A Cleft in the World

French professor Georgie Bricker hasnt poked a toe outside Virginias Willa Cather College for women in two decades. She realizes the irony: shes working to shape her students into world leaders even as PTSD-induced agoraphobia, a result of trauma she suffered as a girl, keeps her prisoner on a tiny college campus. She tells herself her life is fine. Yet on her forty-ninth birthday, she wishes for something extraordinary.Georgie is shattered to learn that her sanctuary is heavily in debt. While she scrambles to rescue the French department, her first love, Truman Parker, arrives to serve as a financial consultant to the school. By day, Georgie works as faculty liaison to his committee. By night, shes a moth to his porch light.When the college announces it will shutter, Georgie and fiercely independent Laurel Cross, the student whos closest to Georgies heart, organize a rally to save it. Between her rekindled love for Truman and Laurel becoming the daughter she never had, her wish for the extraordinary seems to have been granted. But the pivotal rally forces Georgie into the bigger, unsheltered world, where she must confront her final fearsor forfeit her chance for emotional freedom and a fulfilling new life.