Stephanie Gertler's The Windmill is a surprisingly swift and easy read for a novel containing weighty emotional issues. It is told in two voices: Olivia Hughes and Carl Larkin, married for twenty-two years, and yet perhaps not married in every aspect. Despite the house, the family, the dog--all in all, a satisfactory life--Olivia and Carl only seem to relate to one another via an emotional filtration system, each of them holding back, not willing to break open their hearts and share past sorrows with one another.

Olivia's is a story of "might've been." Her first husband Noah died tragically when he and Olivia were both still young, and while Olivia lives a comfortable enough life with Carl, part of her heart still belongs in large part to Noah. Most of The Windmill is told from Olivia's point of view, and the title is taken from a toy windmill Noah had given her.

Meanwhile, Carl has his own painful secrets, and it's his sudden departure one morning that sets Olivia on a path of introspection. Her dependable and steady world has suddenly become akin to a churning sea, and with the deck rolling beneath her, Olivia is forced to evaluate her true feelings for Carl--and Noah. With guidance from her wise mother, who reveals a past secret of her own, Olivia comes to some surprising conclusions.

Carl's portion of the story is predicated on a rather unlikely coincidence, although Gertler does her best to make it seem more like karma. Carl is forced to face a dark past--one that his wife of twenty-two years knows nothing about--as he travels back to his hometown to heal some holes in his heart.

The underlying themes of The Windmill are really first love and family, and how to move on when your life comes to a sudden stop. Despite a rather "pat" ending, The Windmill is a good weekend read, the kind of novel to curl up with either on the beach or in front of the fire.