Nights in Rodanthe (novel) - Plot Summary

Plot Summary

The story begins in 2002 in Rocky Mount, North Carolina. Adrienne Willis, a part-time librarian and divorced mother of three, is helping her daughter, Amanda, cope with depression. Adrienne is having problems coping with the loss of her husband and is having difficulties raising her three children. In an effort to show that life goes on despite trying times, Adrienne tells her daughter the story of her relationship with Paul Flanner, whom she met in 1988.

Adrienne was abandoned for a younger woman by her husband. She parented their children alone and took care of her sick father. This had worn her down. So when an opportunity comes along to tend an inn in the small coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina for a friend, Adrienne decides to do it. As soon as she arrives, a major storm is forecast. Meanwhile, Paul, a fifty-four-year-old father, arrives in Rodanthe. He has sold his home and practice, and now wishes to travel to an isolated place where he can seek relief from his shattered life. A successful surgeon, he has recently divorced from his wife, and has had a patient die.

While the storm looms, the two characters, the only people at the inn, find compassion in one another and fall in love. After a few days, Adrienne and Paul slowly realize that once they leave, they must return to their separate lives. Paul explains a promise to join his estranged son in a medical clinic in Ecuador; eventually, he and Adrienne part. Adrienne returns to Rocky Mount. Paul heads for Ecuador. They communicate through letters, further fortifying their love. Paul, however, dies in Ecuador.