Release Date: July 1, 2025
Size: 5.25 x 8
Paperback ISBN: 978-1-57869-202-6
eBook ISBN: 978-1-57869-198-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2025907235
Booksellers and Libraries: Order Info Here or at Ingram.

SYNOPSIS

As a teenager in the 1950s attending summer camp in the Blue Ridge Mountains, Gemma Sommerset, from Lynchburg, Virginia, is given a glimpse of her future self—a woman capable of accomplishing just about anything. She dreams of traveling and writing. But with the expectations of marriage and motherhood, what are the odds that she'll get to live on her own terms? Isn’t life, after all, a game of chance?

A literary fiction of a resilient woman coming into her own power, Gemma Sommerset—the third novel from indie-award-winning novelist Jill McCroskey Coupe—shows it’s never too late to follow your dreams.

Praise

“After finishing Jill McCroskey Coupe’s tender and riveting new novel, I was still seeing the world through its radiant lens. Reading Gemma Sommerset is like falling into a beguiling dream from which you don’t want to wake. Here is a heartfelt and redemptive novel of love and loss so exquisitely told that you want to stand up and cheer for Gemma and her family and for the author who writes with such intelligence, grace, and tenderness.” 

—John Dufresne, author of My Darling Boy

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“Gemma Sommerset is a charming, satisfying catharsis of a book, a story of love and loss and secrets. I love everything about this novel—its magical setting, where sky meets mountain, the vibrant prose and compelling characters, but most of all, Gemma, my new favorite heroine who encourages an unforgettable, powerful question: Who is it that we really want to become in our lives?”                                   

—Kim Bradley, author of Spillway

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“As we age, it seems the years flash by, and the same is true for Gemma Sommerset. With concise and compact writing, Jill McCroskey Coupe depicts a Virginia woman who’s true to herself and to her daughters as she seeks what we all seek in life: fulfilment and a happy ending. A refreshing and satisfying read.” 

—Louella Bryant, author of Sheltering Angel

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“In her third novel, Jill McCroskey Coupe has brought into even stronger focus the meaning of the circle of life. As she deftly takes us on Gemma Sommerset’s passages from childhood to old age, we realize that this is not just Gemma’s story but our own. The action is well-developed and compelling. This is a book you cannot put down!”

—Julie Fritz, author of Twinings: Poems at Eighty

Meet the Author

A former librarian at Johns Hopkins University, Jill McCroskey Coupe has an MFA in fiction from Warren Wilson College. Having grown up in Knoxville, Tennessee, she (like Gemma) has always loved the Southern Appalachians. She currently lives in Southern Vermont.