Greater Expectations: A Novel by Angela Terry

Angela Terry is the award-winning and Amazon bestselling author of Charming Falls Apart, The Trials of Adeline Turner, and The Palace at Dusk. She is also a Chicago Marathon legacy finisher and races to raise money for PAWS Chicago—the Midwest’s largest no-kill shelter. She resides in San Francisco with her husband and two cats.

How does Allison James’s sense of stability at the beginning of the novel make the sudden disruptions in her life feel even more profound?

This novel is a follow-up to my first book, Charming Falls Apart, where Allison loses her job and her fiancé the day before her thirty-fifth birthday and has to rebuild her life. In Greater Expectations, she’s now living her best life as an entrepreneur with a successful business and has a supportive, loving boyfriend. 

So when she receives a middle-of-the-night call that her mother has suffered a heart attack, her world is shaken again. It’s also a wake call that she’s become complacent and sitting on her biggest desire—to be a mother. Life is short, and she realizes she can no longer wait on this dream.

In what ways does the desire for motherhood reshape Allison’s priorities, and how does it challenge the life she has carefully built?

Allison has always known she wanted to be a mother. And she’s finally with someone she considers her soulmate, but with one big hiccup—Eric doesn’t want to be a father. So she must either convince him to have kids or decide what she wants more: to stay in her current relationship and be childless or to pursue motherhood on her own. She’s also a sole business owner, so her decision to go it alone could also have consequences for the business she’s been building. 

How does the novel explore the tension between romantic partnership and individual life goals, especially when those goals no longer align?

I was really careful not to make her partner, Eric, a villain. Whether to have children has been at the center of their relationship from when they first became serious as a couple. But then with the pandemic and their focusing on their businesses, they let their relationship coast without addressing this big issue. So now they’re forced to have the hard conversations—do they go their separate ways, does he capitulate, does Allison have to face some of her own fears, or is there some sort of compromise? There are no wrong answers, but all require tough decisions.

What role does timing play in Allison’s journey—particularly the realization that certain dreams may feel urgent or fleeting?

Allison is thirty-eight years old when the book opens and turns thirty-nine during the story. For a woman’s fertility, biological age is a fact; and at a certain point, each passing year lowers her chances of getting pregnant. And so with each setback, when it happens, she’s afraid that pregnancy may no longer be an option for her. 

How does her mother’s health crisis act as a catalyst for deeper reflection about family, legacy, and what truly matters?

Allison and her mother have a difficult relationship. Her mom can be critical and pushy, but she ultimately wants what’s best for Allison. And so her mother gives her the advice that sometimes when we have a long-standing dream, we need to pursue it, even if it means sacrificing something else. 

What does the strain in Allison’s closest friendship reveal about how personal struggles can ripple through even the strongest relationships?
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Probably my favorite relationship in the book is between Allison and her best friend, Jordan. They make each other laugh and are incredibly supportive of each other. But as much as Allison wants to have children, Jordan has never wanted to have them.  

Allison worries Jordan can’t understand her struggles because she has never understood her desire to be a mom. And when Allison’s disappointments and losses build up, Jordan suddenly seems to be actively avoiding her. Allison thinks she’s been asking too much from her friend and is hesitant to reach out because she wants to respect Jordan’s space. But she also doesn’t want to lose their friendship.

How does the story portray grief and uncertainty—not just as obstacles, but as forces that reshape identity and perspective?

The Allison in this book is stronger and wiser than in the first. And so while she can still be a wallower, she rebounds faster. Despite her grief and all the uncertainty in her relationships and path to motherhood, she will fight for what she wants and doesn’t shy away from tough choices. And while she feels she shouldn’t compromise her dream for a relationship, she also accepts where she is in life and is open to reimagining what she thought becoming a mother would look like. 

In what ways does Allison’s entrepreneurial success both empower her and complicate her emotional journey?

Because she’s had success as a sole business owner, it gives her the self-confidence that she’s capable of being a single mother. However, that’s another reality and complication—that this thing she has built, she might have to give up for better security for herself and her child. But she’s adaptable and willing to pivot career-wise if it’s in the best interest of her future family.

At its core, what is the story asking about expectations—how they are formed, how they shift, and whether letting go of them can open the door to something greater?

This is the primary message of the book. In life, disappointment happens because the reality of a situation didn’t match our expectations. But when we stop holding onto how we want something to play out, that opens the door for maybe even something better than what we originally imagined. 

Allison had a rigid view of how she expected to experience motherhood, and while she’s let go of her earlier visions of the whole suburban, white-picket-fence scenario from the first book, she still had an expectation of how she would become a mother. Once she shifts her perspective and becomes open to new possibilities, her eventual “happily ever after” turns out to be even greater than what she dreamed.

What has been your favorite thing since the book was published. 

As an author, I write for connection. And so it’s been touching how many readers have reached out to tell me how they related to Allison’s story and to share their own stories with me.

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Link to purchase the book:
​https://www.amazon.com/Greater-Expectations-Novel-Angela-Terry/dp/B0GTQ86FWL