Charming misfits-in-paradise idyll from British-born, Australia-based novelist Hansen, in which love and kindness bloom improbably among three social outcasts on a remote corner of New Zealand’s Great Barrier Island. Hansen’s turn at the eternal triangle begins when Rosie Trethewey, a spunky, pre-feminist divorced psychologist, takes a break from her job as an Auckland marketing researcher for toilet-bowl cleaning products to investigate a cottage bequeathed to her by a former patient. Rosie discovwers the shack on the wild southern tip of Great Barrier Island. Despite its awkwardly located outhouse and refractory woodstove, she finds its isolation an answer to unvoiced prayers. But her arrival provokes confusion in her oddball neighbors Red O’Hara, a handsome but demented workaholic survivor of a Japanese POW camp, and Angus McLeod, a misanthropic retired policeman who works off his repressed paternal urges by writing children’s books. Fearing that Rosie will usher in the civilized complications they dread, Angus and Red dismiss her as an ignorant woman not cut out for the rigors of wilderness life. Such treatment only inspires Rosie to stay, proving Angus wrong, and nurture Red’s wounded psyche, if not take him to bed. Rosie achieves every goal, though not without moments of comic discomfort (men keep interrupting her every time she wants to soak in the tub) and visits from the breezy but not sleazy Navy Lt. Commander Michael “Mickey” Finn, who, in addition to sharing Rosie’s bed, wants Red to get proof that the wily Japanese Captain Shimojo Seiichi is fishing illegally within New Zealand’s territorial waters. Red ‘s discovery of a cache of military explosives gives the bickering islanders the power to blow Seiichi sky-high. Paced so slowly that it might as well have been written on island time, but, still, Hansen’s feel-good screwball romance is sufficiently sexy and exotic to build him a stateside following.
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-684-85407-4
Page Count: 480
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 1999
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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