Brave(ish)

At forty, Margaret quits her sales job to follow her husbands hotel career to Paris. Shes setting sail on this adventure with a glass half full of bravery, a well-traveled passport, a journal in which she plans to write her novel, and the mentally engrained Davis Family Handbook of Rules to Live By.Everyone tells Margaret shes living the dream, but she feels adrift without a professional identity. Desperate to feel productive and valued, she abandons her writing and throws herself into new roles: perfect wife, hostess, guide, and expatriate. When she and her husband move to Cairo, however, the void inside shes been ignoring threatens to engulf her. Its clear that something needs to change, so she does the one thing she was raised never to do: asks forand acceptshelp.Over the next fifteen years abroad, the cultures of Egypt, Thailand, and Singapore confront Margaret with lessons she never would have learned at home. But its only when they move back to Chicagowith Margaret now stepping into the role of perfect caretaker to her parentsthat she has to decide once and for all: will she dare to let go of the old rules and roles she thinks keep her safe in order to step into her own life and creative destiny?