Swim Season

Teens

synopsis

Synopsis

Swim Season is the fast-paced, drama driven story of Olympic hopeful Aerin Keane, starting senior year in her third high school and trying NOT to win. But can she hide her natural talent and competitive streak? Especially with a 50,000-dollar scholarship on the line?

bio

Author Biography

Marianne Sciucco is not a nurse who writes but a writer who happens to be a nurse. A lover of words and books, she dreamt of becoming an author when she grew up but became a nurse to avoid poverty. She later brought her two passions together and writes about the intricate lives of people struggling with health and family issues. Her debut novel Blue Hydrangeas, an Alzheimer’s love story, is a Kindle bestseller; IndieReader Approved; a BookWorks featured book; and a Library Journal Self-e Selection. Her years of experience caring for dementia patients inspired this book and led her to become a cofounder and manager of AlzAuthors, the global community of authors writing about their Alzheimer's and dementia caregiving experiences. On the lighter side, she's the author of a Young Adult sports novel Swim Season, based on her daughter's 11-year career as a varsity swimmer. She's also written several short stories. All of her work is published in paperback, ebook, and audiobook. A native Bostonian, she lives in New York’s Hudson Valley, and, when not writing or teaching classes in independent publishing, works as a campus nurse at a community college.

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Author Insight

A Dutiful Army Nurse Comes Home to Divorce

This week’s Bubble theme is "homecoming," which is a common theme in my fiction. For example, in Swim Season coming home is at the center of the story, when Aerin’s mom, Devon, returns from a tour of duty in Afghanistan and her husband, Gordon, moves out, leaving her for another woman, and serves her with divorce papers. For Aerin, this is the greatest betrayal. Focused on her academics and prowess in the pool, she was unaware of what went on behind the scenes at home – her parents' growing differences and changing priorities - and the divorce takes her by surprise. She blames her father for everything, but as he explains his reasons for the marriage's unraveling, she begins to see things in a more mature light and realizes both of her parents may have been at fault. Still, her fierce loyalty to her wounded warrior mom is at the heart of her fractured relationship with her father and his new wife, Dawn. What do you think? Did Gordon handle his marital conflicts in an appropriate manner? What could he have done differently? Does he deserve Aerin's forgiveness? Email me your thoughts at mariannesciucco@gmail.com.

Book Excerpt

Swim Season

Chapter 14

They stared at me in silence for a moment, the girls’ splashes and screeches in the pool punctuating the tension.

“Well, Aerin,” my father finally said, “you’ve made your feelings clear. We’ve talked about this umpteen times. I can’t help it that my marriage to your mother failed. She chose to join the military. She knew she’d be deployed. I did my best as a single parent, but I was lonely, and Dawn filled that void. I’m not going to apologize for falling in love with her, and I’m not going to apologize for building a family with her. Your mother made her choice, and I made mine.”

He sugarcoated everything so he wouldn’t look like the bad guy. What he failed to mention was that my mother was compelled to serve our country in a time of war. She put aside everything - her comfort, her security, her marriage, her child - to administer to our soldiers in a foreign land, many of them wounded in ways only imaginable. While she was altruistic and patriotic, my father thought only of himself and found another woman. When my mother came back after her first tour of duty, he greeted her with divorce papers.

“You think you’ve done nothing wrong,” I said, “but from my point of view, you cheated on Mom while she was in the middle of a combat zone, working around the clock to save lives, putting her own life at risk. I think she’s brave and unselfish, the best woman I have ever known. She may not work out four hours a day,” I looked at Dawn, “or get her nails done every week, but she’s beautiful. She didn’t deserve what you did.”

“Well,” Dawn said, finding her voice. “This conversation has gone a little off track. We hoped you’d be excited for us. I’ve done all I can to welcome you into our home. I treat you like a daughter. Yet you’ve made it quite clear you don’t want to be a part of our family.”

“Now, honey,” my father said, “that’s not what she means. She’s still angry with me, with us, for the changes in her life. But Aerin,” he said looking at me, “you’re a big girl now, and there are a few things about your mother and I that we haven’t told you. It’s time you know the whole story.

“Long before September 11th and your mother’s enlistment, our lives were about to change. Your mother is a good woman, an excellent nurse, and always puts others first, qualities I admired when we first met. I started my career as a public defender, and in that way she and I were alike - we wanted to serve others - but it was impossible to support our family in the city on a public defender’s salary. When I had the opportunity to join a corporate practice I jumped at it, but your mom was not pleased. She liked the money, but her worldview is about service, and she had a hard time justifying my job in business law.

“When September 11th happened, your mother and I were already at a standstill. She enlisted in the Reserve against my wishes. How were we supposed to save our marriage when she was on the other side of the world? I didn’t go out looking for another woman, but Dawn came into my life when I needed someone, and provided me with comfort.”

These revelations stunned me. “I don’t believe you,” I said. “I would’ve known if you were on the verge of splitting up.”

“Your mother and I made sure you didn’t know,” my father said. “It was our trouble. The last thing we wanted was to upset you. We went to counseling, but that didn’t help. Then the towers fell, and your mother became consumed with that, with the recovery effort, and then enlisting once the war started. After that, we didn’t have a chance.”

As a lawyer, he was well-trained at circumventing the truth, at making arguments to support his point of view. I wanted to close my ears to what he was saying, but had to wonder if any of it were true. From the outset, I’d blamed him and Dawn for breaking up our family, but if what he said was true, my mother had played her own part.

“I’m asking Mom,” I said. We had a visit coming up, and in her fragile condition it might not be the best time to bring up this subject, but I had to know.

“Ask her,” he said. “She’ll tell you the same thing. Our marriage was over whether Dawn entered my life or not.”