Two books by Nicholas Sparks

The Best of Me ~ by Nicholas Sparks, 2011, fiction (North Carolina), 336 pages

In this #1 New York Times bestselling novel of first love and second chances, former high school sweethearts confront the painful truths of their past to build a promising future — together.  "Everyone wanted to believe that endless love was possible.  She'd believed in it once, too, back when she was eighteen."

In the spring of 1984, high school students Amanda Collier and Dawson Cole fell deeply in love.  Though they were from opposite sides of the tracks, their love for one another seemed to defy the realities of life in their small town in North Carolina.  But as the summer of their senior year came to a close, unforeseen events would tear the young couple apart, setting them on radically divergent paths.

Now, twenty-five years later, Amanda and Dawson are summoned back home for the funeral of Tuck Hostetler, the mentor who once gave shelter to their high school romance.  Neither has lived the life they imagined, and neither can forget the passionate first love that forever changed their lives.  As Amanda and Dawson carry out the instructions Tuck left behind for them, they realize that everything they thought they knew — about Tuck, themselves, and the dreams they held dear — was not as it seemed.

Forced to confront painful memories, the former lovers will discover undeniable truths about the choices they have made.  And in the course of a single, searing weekend, they will ask of the living, and the dead:  Can love truly rewrite the past?

A Walk to Remember ~ by Nicholas Sparks, 1999, fiction (North Carolina), 256 pages

There was a time when the world was sweeter, when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats.  Every April, when the wind smells of both the sea and lilacs, Landon Carter remembers 1958, his last year at Beaufort High.  Landon had dated a girl or two, and even once sworn that he'd been in love.  Certainly the last person he thought he'd fall for was Jamie, the shy daughter of the town's Baptist minister — Jamie, who was destined to show him the depths of the human heart and the joy and pain of living.  The inspiration for this novel came from the life and courage of the author's sister.