The One & Only: A Novel

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The beloved author of Something Borrowed and Where We Belong returns with an extraordinary story of love and loyalty—and an unconventional heroine struggling to reconcile both.

Thirty-three-year-old Shea Rigsby has spent her entire life in Walker, Texas—a small college town that lives and dies by football, a passion she unabashedly shares. Raised alongside her best friend, Lucy, the daughter of Walker’s legendary head coach, Clive Carr, Shea was too devoted to her hometown team to leave. Instead she stayed in Walker for college, even taking a job in the university athletic department after graduation, where she has remained for more than a decade.

But when an unexpected tragedy strikes the tight-knit Walker community, Shea’s comfortable world is upended, and she begins to wonder if the life she’s chosen is really enough for her. As she finally gives up her safety net to set out on an unexpected path, Shea discovers unsettling truths about the people and things she has always trusted most—and is forced to confront her deepest desires, fears, and secrets.

Thoughtful, funny, and brilliantly observed, The One & Only is a luminous novel about finding your passion, following your heart, and, most of all, believing in something bigger than yourself . . . the one and only thing that truly makes life worth living.

Praise for The One & Only • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY POPSUGAR
 
“A page turner.”—Southern Living
 
“The One & Only is one to read.”—Associated Press
 
“Giffin scores again by bringing her discerning understanding of matters of the heart.”—Family Circle
 
“A poignant story about growing up and growing into your own skin.”—BookPage
 
“Touching.”—New York Daily News
 
“Deep, beautifully written . . . [Emily Giffin’s] latest focuses on a forbidden love of sorts, but in a new setting: a fictional small college town in Texas.”—Marie Claire
 
“Each and every page of this story is entertaining. . . . Giffin is a talented writer who always comes up with a plot that is just a bit different than anything others are writing about. . . . Find a shady spot; get a cool drink, and just luxuriate in the joy of a book well written.”—The Huffington Post
 
“Brace yourself for a tearjerker: A tale of friendship and loyalty in a small, football-crazed Texas town shows how quickly things can change when tragedy challenges all that the characters hold dear . . . [A] page-turner.”—InStyle
 
“[Giffin’s] protagonists . . . live full, interesting lives outside the purely personal realm—no more so than Shea Rigsby, the funny, flawed, but sympathetic central character in the The One & Only.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
 
“In bestseller Giffin’s much-anticipated latest, a young woman’s life is upended when tragedy strikes the football-obsessed Texas town she’s always called home.”—People
 
“To fill your Friday Night Lights void: A tale of die-hard love in a diehard Texas football town from the bestselling author of Something Borrowed.”—Cosmopolitan