In a Sweet Unrest

The four-month-old baby at the end of Rebecca Mark's first novel, A Calm Round of Hours, is all grown up, living in Chicago, working as an emergency room doctor at Northwestern, and trying to find the love of his life.

It's the Monday after Easter in 2014, and this new novel's first-person narrator, Dr. Peter Byron White, has just turned thirty-three. Stopping after work one night in a Lincoln Park bar, he hopes to meet a woman he can take home, but instead he encounters five DePaul seniors, only one of whom he is attracted to. He thinks he will never see Ellie again, but then he chances to run into her one Sunday in May, and she agrees to go out to dinner with him the following Friday.

Earlier Peter has learned that his friend-with-benefits co-worker Jennifer no long wants to see him because she has begun a new relationship, so Peter is eager to see Ellie. During dinner that evening, she tells Peter she does not want to talk about her family because of a "hardship" her family is dealing with. Later, back at his condo, Peter tells Ellie all about his family, and after he finishes, he hopes to bed her, but she tells him that she will not sleep with him so early in their relationship; instead, they get to know each other by asking questions, and Peter learns a little about Ellie's college boyfriend Darnell.

For their next date, Ellie joins Peter for his volunteer tutoring session and then has dinner with him. Back at Peter's condo, she tells him she wants to get to know him better, so Peter reveals more about his Iowa youth. Although Ellie will not sleep with Peter, they do plan to see each other on May 23rd, but before that day Ellie sends Peter an e-mail saying that she is going to New York over Memorial Day weekend to see Darnell and that she will understand if Peter wants to cancel their date. Although Peter is very disappointed upon learning of Ellie's travel plans, he wants to see her, and so they go to a movie and have dinner, and then, back at his condo, Ellie, with many tears, finally tells Peter about her family's "hardship." After the trauma of hearing that, Peter tells Ellie he cannot sleep with her, but they agree to see each other after she returns from New York.

However, another e-mail from Ellie telling Peter that she has re-connected with Darnell and does not want Peter to contact her devastates Peter, but he respects her wishes. During the next several months, Peter dates two different women, Japjit and Bridgette, but he ends his relationships with both.

Finally, on his 34th birthday, Peter receives a card from Ellie telling him all about her new life, and after he calls her, they agree to meet for lunch on Friday, May 1, 2015.

Will the changes that both Peter and Ellie have made in their lives bring them together at last? Will Peter finally have found the love of his life?

An epilogue written a year later, in May 2016, tells the reader everything!