Balancing Act

This is a story about secrets we keep and how they affect us throughout our lives. Recently widowed Sabrina Olensky returns to her home in Ohio where she seeks solace at the peaceful lake setting of her childhood as she confronts issues that have destroyed relationships with her surviving adult children. Told partly through flashbacks of Sabrina and her college sweetheart Francisco, Balancing Act is a tale that begins with Sabrina's well-meaning but overprotective mother whose forced involvement in Sabrina's life results in a horror that Sabrina tries to hide for forty years. Underlying the story is Francisco's unwavering though bewildered devotion as Sabrina deserts him and marries someone else. It also portrays Sabrina's dedication to her mentally retarded younger sister, and looks at how friends help one another. Balancing Act is a novel about life's cruelties and times of joy, and how balancing good with bad ultimately leads to unanticipated new levels of relationship.