Olivia Sumner arrived in Wilmington, looking for a new start. A high school senior to be, she would leave behind the cornfields of Iowa for the picturesque coastal city of Sea Breeze, North Carolina. Forced into moving by her mother, Olivia wasn't ready to leave behind her boyfriend Harold, or a life that she pictured as only just beginning. Not happy, and with only a few weeks of summer remaining before the start of senior year, everything would change the moment she stepped from the back seat of her mother's car. Upon seeing her new home for the first time and meeting the handsome boy next door, sparks would fly. And with the summer sun, the new boy would introduce Olivia to a place and a lifestyle she'd never before imagined. The boy sharing his love for the outer banks and the deep blue sea with a passion in his eyes that Olivia had never seen before. And, with the passage of time, this boy and girl would marry in a beautiful double-ring ceremony where romance meets fairytale with its promise of, a happy ever after. Life could not have turned out any better for Olivia. Unfortunately, years later with the murder of a well-known woman in town, everything would change once again. Then, over the years that followed, having watched her once-perfect life slowly slip away little by little, Olivia takes a long-overdue trip back to her old hometown, back to a place she seemingly had forgotten when lost in the ebb and flow of churning waters out there in that place where footprints disappear. Back then as a teen, Olivia would be hypnotized by the warmth of the wind gently blowing through the pines while the blue sky above her painted unimaginable pictures of the coastline as the sun gloriously cast its radiant glow down into her pretty green eyes. Home again, now as an aged, withered, older woman, Olivia would search for those long-forgotten memories of her youth. The woman trying to recapture her spirit for a life, once loved. And, on this visit home, Olivia would meet a well-remembered name from her past. In this chance encounter, that woman sharing a story about her husband, if true, capable of bringing her marriage to its knees.
In the stirring and evocative style of Kristin Hannah, The Art of Knowing unfolds against a backdrop of coastal wonders and the nostalgia of returning to a past that had yet to be settled. Olivia's quest for rekindled love and her journey of self-discovery will resonate deeply with your heart. Secrets long buried will emerge, and the power of love, redemption, and forgiveness will weave a poignant tapestry that will keep the pages turning right up to the very end, this novel lingering in your thoughts and dreams long after you've turned the final page.