Böcker av Pete Carlson

How do you paint a regret? As single parents each with two young daughters, Tearza and Ryan struggle with loss, love, and their mistakes. Tearza is devastated with guilt over her husband's sudden suicide and the loss of her job. She's worried about the grief consuming her daughters, Marci, and Ella, and afraid to move forward because every time she loves something she loses it. Ryan lost his wife through divorce due to Post-Partum Depression which led to her chemical dependency. Obsessed with his desire to make partner in a prestigious law firm, he struggles to balance work and his two daughters, the same age as Tearza's. Wounded by his past mistakes and broken promises as a husband, he fears he's failing as a father and mother to Sarah and Gracie. Time is running out. If he doesn't make changes soon, he'll regret it for the rest of his life. Together, Tearza and Ryan learn to make difficult choices that come with risk. Their relationship follows the circle of life through four seasons in one year. Along the journey, they discover how their worst regrets become their greatest blessings.

Ukrainian Nights is one of those gritty, unforgettable noir novels that takes its main protagonist to the nadir of love and obsession and then spits him out, almost broken. Hunter, a young New York Times journalist, assigned to investigate sex slavery and money laundering in Kiev just after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is not a tough guy, not in the least, but he falls in love with Alina, the mistress of Karasov--the head of Ukraine's largest mafia--and refuses to let go of her. The love story is run against a background of desperate brutality in Kiev and New York City, the result of the competing interests of international geopolitics, drug money, human trafficking, crooked banking--and for the rich spoils of oil and gas. The plot of Ukrainian Nights twists and turns and the reader is left wondering who is right and who is wrong.