When Jessica Cassady's husband attends a sportswriters' convention and she calls his hotel room in the middle of the night, another woman answers the phone. Lee swears things aren't what they seem, but Jess still kicks him out. While she's deciding whether or not to forgive him, she realizes her hair pulling is more than just a nervous habit and finds out she has a condition called trichotillomania. As if that's not enough to deal with, her domineering mother shows up for a surprise visit!
While Lee works to win Jess back, things grow even more complicated when she runs into Noah Hamilton, a sweet, unassuming history teacher from her past. Jess's interest in Noah makes her think that maybe--as her best friend Deb loves to tell her--she needs to forego the beefcake brigade and give the sensitive type a try, but it also makes Lee realize just how much he's lost in losing his wife. Sparks fly as these two polar opposites on the testosterone scale compete for Jess's affection.
Will Jess be able to find her emotional center, decide which man is right for her and finally achieve the symmetry she craves in every aspect of her life?
NOTE FROM AUTHOR: Like the heroine in this book, I have trichotillomania (TTM), which means compulsive hair pulling. Contrary to what you might have heard about it--if you've heard about it at all--I don't consider it a mental illness. It's a physical condition caused by a sensory imbalance in the nervous system, and approximately 8 million people in the U.S. and 40 million worldwide have it.
Rather than writing a non-fiction book about my own experiences with TTM, I decided to give it to Jess and put her in a book of humorous women's fiction--one I like to call chick lit for women who own more books than shoes. I did this because I'm not trying to educate anyone about TTM. There are already many wonderful resource books out there to do that. I wanted to raise awareness of TTM in the general public, and I also wanted to present a character who is a positive role model for the millions of people suffering alone, some of whom don't even know that what they do has a name.
Here is what Christina Pearson, founding director of the Trichotillomania Learning Center, said about SYMMETRY:
"Joyce Sterling Scarbrough’s SYMMETRY is a wonderful book! Both evocative and touching in its depiction of a difficult period in a marriage, it also conveys a sense of transformation and discovery as the main character, Jess, discovers there is real help for a hair-pulling disorder she has. The story is one of healing, in both an interpersonal relationship and in living with trichotillomania, an often chronic and potentially debilitating compulsive behavior. Jess is a hero of mine!"
Excerpt
Jess always woke a second before she could complete the castration. Curses, foiled again.
She blinked at the red numbers projected onto her ceiling by the clock on her night stand--4:23 a.m. Plenty of time to go back to sleep and finish the job, but she knew it was useless. She'd only end up dreaming about giving birth to a canned ham or grocery shopping in her pajamas, and Lee's manhood would escape the knife again.
She snuggled against the body pillow occupying his place beside her in bed and got an indignant rowl from the Siamese cat curled up there. Jess smiled at the thought of what Lee would say about letting Ming sleep with her and thought maybe she'd tell him he'd been replaced by his feline nemesis when she saw him at the meeting later that morning.
She fell asleep reminding herself how much better off she was without her two-timing, cat-hating, conceited jerk of a husband, and she dreamed he made love to her on the conference table at work, castration the furthest thing from her mind.
God, she hated him.
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