Fortune's Daughter

Book excerpt: From the New York Times bestselling author of The Rules of Magic comes an “intimate, lovely novel”(People) about two mothers whose lives are on the brink of life-altering change. Rae Perry is young, unmarried, and far from home as she awaits the birth of her first child accompanied by the angry, moody man she's loved since high school. Lila Grey is a fortune-teller with no interest in the future, a mother who lost her daughter long ago on a cold, cold day. Now, as these two women meet, it is earthquake weather in California—when animals panic, friends and lovers quarrel, ice cubes dissolve in the palm of your hand. It is a time when things are in the air, and the unexpected happens. For Rae and Lila, it will mean the sudden intertwining of their lives and fates—as each makes a bid to change her fortune forever...