Beginning ~ with a fatal accident

Change of Heart ~ by Jodi Picoult, 2008, fiction

In the beginning, I believed in second chances.  How else could I account for the fact that years ago, right after the accident — when the smoke cleared and the car had stopped tumbling end over end to rest upside down in a ditch — I was still alive; I could hear Elizabeth, my little girl, crying?  The police officer who had pulled me out of the car rode with me to the hospital to have my broken leg set, with Elizabeth — completely unhurt, a miracle — sitting on his lap the whole time.  He'd held my hand when I was taken to identify my husband Jack's body.  He came to the funeral.  He showed up at my door to personally inform me when the drunk driver who ran us off the road was arrested.

Those are the first lines, and here's the publisher's description of the book:

One moment June Nealon was happily looking forward to years full of laughter and adventure with her family, and the next, she was staring into a future that was as empty as her heart.  Now her life is a waiting game.  Waiting for time to heal her wounds, waiting for justice.  In short, waiting for a miracle to happen.  For Shay Bourne, life holds no more surprises.  The world has given him nothing, and he has nothing to offer the world.  In a heartbeat, though, something happens that changes everything for him.  Now, he has one last chance for salvation, and it lies with June's eleven-year-old daughter, Claire.  But between Shay and Claire stretches an ocean of bitter regrets, past crimes, and the rage of a mother who has lost her child.

Gilion at Rose City Reader hosts Book Beginnings on Fridays.  Click here for today's Mister Linky.