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KEEPER OF THE LIGHT

Name: KEEPER OF THE LIGHT
Author: Diane Chamberlain
ISBN: 0-06-017964-3

by Diane Chamberlain ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1992

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In spite of its bleak setting and gloomy undertones, this modern Middle-American potboiler featuring an emergency-room physician whose husband is obsessed with another man's wife engages the reader with its descriptive power and emotional intensity—by the author of Secret Lives (1991). The beautiful red-haired women's-shelter volunteer was already unconscious when brought into the emergency room on Christmas Day- -the unintended gunshot victim of someone else's angry husband. Only as cool, competent physician Olivia Simon is literally holding the woman's heart in her hand, plugging the bullet wounds with her fingers, does Olivia learn that the patient is Annie O'Neill, the woman with whom her husband, Paul, has been obsessed ever since their recent move to North Carolina's Outer Banks. When Annie dies on the operating table, Olivia must first inform the stunned husband, Alec, and the couple's two children, then go home to face her own husband's grief and wrath, knowing her innocent role in Annie's death will mean the end of her marriage. Once Paul moves out, Olivia's grief at the dissolution of her marriage gradually leads her into an obsession of her own with Annie O'Neill. Called ``Saint Anne'' by the locals, the charismatic wife and mother was well-known for donating bone marrow to children with cancer, fighting to preserve historical landmarks, caring for the elderly, and otherwise performing good deeds. But as Olivia becomes more deeply involved in Annie's life and family, she learns that neither Annie nor Paul were ever what they seemed. Will Olivia learn the truth behind Annie's apparent selflessness? Will Alec and his family survive Annie's death? Will Paul recognize the self- destructive nature of his obsession and return to his now-pregnant wife? Will Olivia and Alec find happiness—with or without their mates? Such questions—along with some particularly well-drawn local characters—keep the pages turning.

Pub Date: March 1, 1992

ISBN: 0-06-017964-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1992

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE LAST HOUSE ON THE STREET
by Diane Chamberlain

- BOOK REVIEW
BIG LIES IN A SMALL TOWN
by Diane Chamberlain

- BOOK REVIEW
THE DREAM DAUGHTER
by Diane Chamberlain

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BETWEEN SISTERS

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 1, 2003

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles...

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Sisters in and out of love.

Meghann Dontess is a high-powered matrimonial lawyer in Seattle who prefers sex with strangers to emotional intimacy: a strategy bound to backfire sooner or later, warns her tough-talking shrink. It’s advice Meghann decides to ignore, along with the memories of her difficult childhood, neglectful mother, and younger sister. Though she managed to reunite Claire with Sam Cavenaugh (her father but not Meghann’s) when her mother abandoned both girls long ago, Meghann still feels guilty that her sister’s life doesn’t measure up, at least on her terms. Never married, Claire ekes out a living running a country campground with her dad and is raising her six-year-old daughter on her own. When she falls in love for the first time with an up-and-coming country musician, Meghann is appalled: Bobby Austin is a three-time loser at marriage—how on earth can Claire be so blind? Bobby’s blunt explanation doesn’t exactly satisfy the concerned big sister, who busies herself planning Claire’s dream wedding anyway. And, to relieve the stress, she beds various guys she picks up in bars, including Dr. Joe Wyatt, a neurosurgeon turned homeless drifter after the demise of his beloved wife Diane (whom he euthanized). When Claire’s awful headache turns out to be a kind of brain tumor known among neurologists as a “terminator,” Joe rallies. Turns out that Claire had befriended his wife on her deathbed, and now in turn he must try to save her. Is it too late? Will Meghann find true love at last?

Briskly written soap with down-to-earth types, mostly without the lachrymose contrivances of Hannah’s previous titles (Distant Shores, 2002, etc.). Kudos for skipping the snifflefest this time around.

Pub Date: May 1, 2003

ISBN: 0-345-45073-6

Page Count: 400

Publisher: Ballantine

Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2003

Categories:

GENERAL FICTION

- BOOK REVIEW
THE WOMEN
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE FOUR WINDS
by Kristin Hannah

- BOOK REVIEW
THE GREAT ALONE
by Kristin Hannah

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THE ALCHEMIST

by Paulo Coelho & translated by Margaret Jull Costa ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 1, 1993

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.

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Coelho is a Brazilian writer with four books to his credit. Following Diary of a Magus (1992—not reviewed) came this book, published in Brazil in 1988: it's an interdenominational, transcendental, inspirational fable—in other words, a bag of wind.

The story is about a youth empowered to follow his dream. Santiago is an Andalusian shepherd boy who learns through a dream of a treasure in the Egyptian pyramids. An old man, the king of Salem, the first of various spiritual guides, tells the boy that he has discovered his destiny: "to realize one's destiny is a person's only real obligation." So Santiago sells his sheep, sails to Tangier, is tricked out of his money, regains it through hard work, crosses the desert with a caravan, stops at an oasis long enough to fall in love, escapes from warring tribesmen by performing a miracle, reaches the pyramids, and eventually gets both the gold and the girl. Along the way he meets an Englishman who describes the Soul of the World; the desert woman Fatima, who teaches him the Language of the World; and an alchemist who says, "Listen to your heart" A message clings like ivy to every encounter; everyone, but everyone, has to put in their two cents' worth, from the crystal merchant to the camel driver ("concentrate always on the present, you'll be a happy man"). The absence of characterization and overall blandness suggest authorship by a committee of self-improvement pundits—a far cry from Saint- Exupery's The Little Prince: that flagship of the genre was a genuine charmer because it clearly derived from a quirky, individual sensibility.

Coelho's placebo has racked up impressive sales in Brazil and Europe. Americans should flock to it like gulls.