A Bend in the Road (2001) (edit title/settings)

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• Miles Ryan: A sheriff in New Bern that lost his wife when she got hit while walking. Missy's husband. Went to college at North Carolina State. He was attractive, but appealing in a natural, more rugged way. His face had a roughness to it, as if he’d spent many hours in the sun as a boy. Miles looked almost lean. He didn’t have classic movie-star good looks, but his waist was narrow, his stomach flat, and his shoulders reassuringly broad.
• Jonah Ryan: Miles son that lost his mom. Miles and Missy's child. Didn’t sleep through the night until he was six months old. Missy loved him more than she’d ever imagined possible. He was a nice enough kid: shy and unassuming, the kind of child who was easy to overlook. He’s polite and extremely well spoken for his age. Jonah is very intelligent. Once he learns something, he remembers it. Jonah loved to play soccer more than anything, and he was good at it.
• Missy Ryan: Miles' wife that got killed when she went on a walk. High school sweetheart of a deputy sheriff in a small southern town. Missy Ryan grew up in New Bern. From all accounts, she was both charming and kind.She had dark brown hair and even darker eyes, and spoke with an accent that made men from other parts of the country go weak in the knees.  She laughed easily, listened with interest, and often touched the arm of whomever she was talking to, as if issuing an invitation to be part of her world. And, like most southern women, her will was stronger than was noticeable at first. She ran the household and life was centered around Miles, her husband, and her family. In high school, Missy was a cheerleader. As a sophomore, she was both popular and lovely. She was a wonderful mother. In August of 1986, when she was twenty-nine years old, Missy Ryan was killed.
• Sarah Andrews: A new teacher at Jonah's school. She is going through a divorce and starts falling in love with Miles. Jonah's teacher. She'd been an avid walker for the past five years. Divorced. She loved teaching; she loved working with children. Whenever she walked into a new classroom and saw thirty small faces looking up at her expectantly, she knew she had chosen the right career. She was attractive. Not glamorous in a high-maintenance way, but definitely a woman whose passing would cause men to turn their heads. Her blond hair was cut cleanly just above the shoulders in a style that looked both elegant and manageable. Her blue eyes seemed to radiate a freshness.
• Sylvia: Sarah's counselor
• Charlie Curtis: The head sheriff in New Bern that is also friends with Miles. Miles' best friend and boss. The county sheriff. Charlie had been the one who suggested that Miles become a deputy sheriff, and he’d taken Miles under his wing as soon as Miles had finished his training. He was older—sixty-five, next March—and his hair was streaked with gray. He’d put on twenty pounds in the past few years, almost all of it around his middle. He wasn’t the type of sheriff who intimidated people on sight, but he was perceptive and diligent and had a way of getting the answers he needed. In the last three elections, no one had even bothered to run against him.
• Brenda: Charlie's wife. Brenda worked at the school in the principal’s office and seemed to know everything that went on at the school.
• Otis Timson: One of the people that is suspected of killing Miles' wife but there is no proof. Has bad blood with Miles. To Miles, Otis posed the greatest danger simply because he was the smartest.  Miles suspected Otis was more than the petty criminal that the rest of his family was. For one thing, he didn’t look the part. Unlike his brothers, he shied away from tattoos and kept his hair cut short; there were times he actually held down odd jobs, doing manual labor. He didn’t look like a criminal, but looks were deceiving. His name was loosely linked with various crimes, and townspeople frequently speculated that it was he who directed the flow of drugs into the county, though Miles had no way to prove that. All of their raids had come up empty, much to Miles’s frustration. Otis also held on to a grudge.
• Sims Addison: An untrustworthy person that Miles turns to for answers. Forty; looked something like a rat: a sharp nose, a forehead that sloped backward, and a chin that seemed to have stopped growing before the rest of his body did. He kept his hair slicked back over his head, with the help of a wide-toothed comb he always carried with him. Sims was also an alcoholic whose hands shook in the morning prior to taking his first drink of the day, which he usually finished long before most people headed for work. Although he was partial to bourbon, he seldom had enough money for anything other than the cheapest wines, which he drank by the gallon. Aside from booze and the rent, he didn’t need much money. He had the knack of making himself invisible and had a way of learning things about people.  When he drank, he was neither loud nor obnoxious, but his normal expression—eyes half-closed, mouth slack—gave him the appearance of someone who was far drunker than he usually was. Because of that, people said things in his presence. Sims earned the little money he did by calling in tips to the police.  Sims had spent time in prison: once in his early twenties for petty theft and twice in his thirties for possession of marijuana. The third time behind bars, however, changed him. By then, his alcoholism was full-blown, and he spent the first week suffering from the most severe case of withdrawal imaginable and after a few days of listening to Sims scream and moan, the other man in the cell beat him until he was unconscious. Sims spent three weeks in the infirmary and was released by a parole board. He was placed on probation and told to report to a parole officer.
• The Timson brothers: Sons of Clyde, 5 out of 6 have spent time in jail.
• Harvey Wellman: Harvey Wellman was the district attorney in Craven County. Harvey Wellman, on the other hand, dressed in tailored suits and Cole-Haan shoes and always looked as if he were heading off to a wedding. At thirty, he had begun to go gray at the temples; now, at forty, his hair was nearly silver, giving him a distinguished appearance. In another life, he could have been a news anchor. Or maybe a funeral director.
• Mark: Jonah's friend
• Thurman Jones: Otis's attorney. Thurman Jones was fifty-three, of average height and weight, with wavy brown hair that always looked windblown. He wore navy suits, dark knit ties, and black running shoes while in court, which gave him a sort of country bumpkin appearance. When in court, he spoke slowly and clearly and never lost his cool, and that combination, along with his appearance, played extremely well to a jury.
• Madge: Secretary for the police department. Plump and graying. She’d been around almost as long as Charlie had and knew everything that went on in the department.
• Mrs. Knowlson: A women in Miles neighborhood that watches his son Jonah. She’s in her eighties.
• Brian Andrews: Sarah's younger brother. Like most adolescents, he was sometimes distant and withdrawn, but he was a truly empathetic listener. He’s shy and not real good at meeting people. He tends to be a little introspective.
• Maureen Andrews: Sarah's mother. Maureen looked nothing like her daughter. Where Sarah was blond, Maureen’s hair was graying in a way that looked as if it had been black at one time; where Sarah was tall and thin, her mother had a more matronly appearance.
• Miss Harkins: A older women dressed op for the ghost walk. Her hair was white and thinning, her body frail and brittle. Her voice was raspy, like that of a lifetime smoker.
• Earl Getlin: Another in a long line of people well-known in the police department.  Tall and thin, pockmarked face, tattoos up both arms—one that showed a lynching, the other a skull with a knife driven through it. Had been arrested for assault, breaking and entering, dealing in stolen goods. Suspected drug dealer. A year and a half ago, after being caught stealing a car, he’d been sent up to Hailey State Prison. Not due for release for another four years.
• Beck Swanson: Witnessed a fight with Otis.
• Michael King: Sarah's ex-husband. Has a MBA from Georgetown. His family, one of the most prominent in Baltimore, had made their fortune in banking and were immensely wealthy and clannish, the type of family that sat on the boards of various corporations and instituted policies at country clubs that served to exclude those they regarded as inferior. Michael, however, seemed to reject his family’s values and was regarded as the ultimate catch. Heads would turn when he entered a room, and though he knew what was happening, his most endearing quality was that he pretended other people’s images of him didn’t matter at all.  Pretended,of course, was the key word. He was rich, well educated, and good-looking.
• Harris Presser: Born in 1843 to owners of a small candle-making shop in downtown New Bern. Like many young men of the period, Harris wanted to serve for the Confederacy when the War of Southern Independence began. Because he was an only son, however, both his mother and father begged him not to go. In listening to their wishes, Harris Presser irrevocably sealed his fate.
• Kathryn Purdy: Kathryn Purdy was only seventeen, and like Harris, she was also an only child.  Her parents owned both the hotel and the logging mill, and were the wealthiest family in town.
• Clyde Timson: Otis’s father. Was arrested for assault when he’d thrown his wife through the screen door on their mobile home. Clyde had spent time in prison for that—though not as long as he should have—and over the years, five of his six sons had spent time in prison as well on offenses ranging from drug dealing to assault to car theft.
• Harris Young: One of the deputies
• Tom Vernon: Current warden at Hailey.
• Bennie Wiggins: Driver of the church van. Had never had so much as a speeding ticket in his fifty-four years of driving.
• Larry Kirshbaum: Sarah's father. Had taken a job as hospital administrator at Craven Regional Medical Center.
• Zach: Friend of Mark and Jonah. Plays soccer.
• Bob Bostrum: Janitor at school. He’s seventy-four years old. He’s been married for fifty years. He’s got nine kids.
• Janice: Brian's new wife. Teaches high school English.
• Joe Hendricks: Used to be the warden at Hailey.
• Mrs. Hayes: Jonah's old teacher.

Quotes edit see section history

• “Do you wrap a towel around your hair after you bath or do you style it immediately?”

  Miles Ryan

Setting & Locations edit see section history

• New Bern: A small southern town in North Carolina, ideal for raising children
• Baltimore: Where Sarah Andrews was born and raised, worked for four years, until her divorce.
• Grayton Elementary School: In New Bern, the grammar school Jonah attended
• Madame Moore's Lane: A narrow two-lane road, narrow and winding, that ran along the Trent River and Brices Creek from downtown New Bern to Pollocksville.

First Sentence edit see section history

Table of Contents edit see section history

Series & Lists edit see section history

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

1. Nicholas Sparks (Author)

First Edition edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

• Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
• Dewey: 813.54

Notes for Parents edit see section history

While subject matter is deep, I believe this is appropriate for 16+.

Subjects edit see section history

• Books › Literature & Fiction › Authors, A-Z › ( S ) › Sparks, Nicholas
• Books › Mystery & Thrillers › Thrillers › Psychological & Suspense
• Books › Literature & Fiction › Contemporary
• Books › Romance › Contemporary

More Books Like This edit see section history