by Caroline Leavitt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Jan. 25, 2011
Heartfelt (everyone cries), deft and highly readable fiction.
Tragedy leads to complicated love as a widower and the woman who accidentally killed his wife are united by a grieving child looking for an angel.
Compassion and a delicate narrative voice lift Leavitt (Girls in Trouble, 2003, etc.) over many if not all the hurdles of sentimentality in this heartstring-tugger, set in Cape Cod, that’s shaped by loss and yearning. Photographer Isabelle Stein, fleeing from her unfaithful husband in foggy weather, suddenly encounters a car containing a woman and a child, the car facing the wrong way in the middle of the road. The unavoidable collision leaves April Nash dead; her nine-year-old asthmatic son Sam only slightly hurt but silent on what he witnessed; and Sam’s father Charlie heartbroken and bewildered. Why was April three hours away from home and traveling with a suitcase? The aftermath of the crash is a struggle for all parties, especially Sam, who sees Isabelle as an angel connected to his mother. The two become friends through photography, and Charlie’s initial anger subsides as he acknowledges childless Isabelle’s genuine affection for the boy. But when Sam learns that the adults have become lovers, the emotional impact makes him ill. Separation follows, then an explanation which liberates Charlie to go after Isabelle. Crossed wires are eventually straightened out, but not predictably.
Heartfelt (everyone cries), deft and highly readable fiction.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56512-631-2
Page Count: 336
Publisher: Algonquin
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2010
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by Colleen Hoover ‧ RELEASE DATE: Dec. 10, 2019
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.
When tragedy strikes, a mother and daughter forge a new life.
Morgan felt obligated to marry her high school sweetheart, Chris, when she got pregnant with their daughter, Clara. But she secretly got along much better with Chris’ thoughtful best friend, Jonah, who was dating her sister, Jenny. Now her life as a stay-at-home parent has left her feeling empty but not ungrateful for what she has. Jonah and Jenny eventually broke up, but years later they had a one-night stand and Jenny got pregnant with their son, Elijah. Now Jonah is back in town, engaged to Jenny, and working at the local high school as Clara’s teacher. Clara dreams of being an actress and has a crush on Miller, who plans to go to film school, but her father doesn't approve. It doesn’t help that Miller already has a jealous girlfriend who stalks him via text from college. But Clara and Morgan’s home life changes radically when Chris and Jenny are killed in an accident, revealing long-buried secrets and forcing Morgan to reevaluate the life she chose when early motherhood forced her hand. Feeling betrayed by the adults in her life, Clara marches forward, acting both responsible and rebellious as she navigates her teenage years without her father and her aunt, while Jonah and Morgan's relationship evolves in the wake of the accident. Front-loaded with drama, the story leaves plenty of room for the mother and daughter to unpack their feelings and decide what’s next.
The emotions run high, the conversations run deep, and the relationships ebb and flow with grace.Pub Date: Dec. 10, 2019
ISBN: 978-1-5420-1642-1
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Montlake Romance
Review Posted Online: Oct. 13, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2019
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by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.
Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.
In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring passeurs: people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.
Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015
ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014
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BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
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