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BECAUSE I LOVED YOU

A compelling relationship tale that explores two lives over a half-century.

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A lifelong love story—with obstacles—moves from 1970s Texas to present-day New York City.

In this debut novel, two Texas farm kids with big dreams fall in love as teens, split up, reconnect as adults, break up again, and finally come together at a crucial moment. Aspiring artist Leni O’Hare meets Cal McGrath when she impulsively runs away from home after her mother tries to sell her beloved horse, Foggy. Cal has a contentious relationship with his father, a self-made businessman who wants his son to take over the ranching and oil drilling instead of going to college to study physics. The teen knows Leni as the younger sister of his football teammate Foy O’Hare. But Cal quickly connects with Leni, and they swiftly fall for each other. When Foy dies from heat exhaustion at football practice, Cal and Leni are both devastated. Their relationship suffers ups and downs as they deal with their grief, and they are soon making plans to leave Texas together to pursue their passions for physics and art. When Leni gets pregnant, she keeps it a secret from Cal and flees her home with the help of his older brother, Hank, before giving the baby up for adoption. A decade later, Leni and Cal are both in New York, working in art and finance, when their paths cross again. Their romance quickly reignites. A disagreement drives them apart again, and they spend the next 30 years pursuing their own paths until a sudden reconciliation occurs. The story is a compelling one, with Leni and Cal’s relationship at its core. The two come across as fully realized characters, not just star-crossed lovers. Brown brings both the Texas and New York settings to life, and complex secondary characters, especially Foy and Hank, add to the novel’s richness. There are minor stylistic problems (particularly the odd phonetic rendering of several French accents) but they do not detract much from the character-driven narrative. The book explores questions of independence, responsibility, family, and authenticity while telling a page-turning story that will keep readers invested.

A compelling relationship tale that explores two lives over a half-century.

Pub Date: April 4, 2023

ISBN: 9781647422981

Page Count: 408

Publisher: She Writes Press

Review Posted Online: Dec. 12, 2022

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2023

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  • New York Times Bestseller

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THE WOMEN

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

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A young woman’s experience as a nurse in Vietnam casts a deep shadow over her life.

When we learn that the farewell party in the opening scene is for Frances “Frankie” McGrath’s older brother—“a golden boy, a wild child who could make the hardest heart soften”—who is leaving to serve in Vietnam in 1966, we feel pretty certain that poor Finley McGrath is marked for death. Still, it’s a surprise when the fateful doorbell rings less than 20 pages later. His death inspires his sister to enlist as an Army nurse, and this turn of events is just the beginning of a roller coaster of a plot that’s impressive and engrossing if at times a bit formulaic. Hannah renders the experiences of the young women who served in Vietnam in all-encompassing detail. The first half of the book, set in gore-drenched hospital wards, mildewed dorm rooms, and boozy officers’ clubs, is an exciting read, tracking the transformation of virginal, uptight Frankie into a crack surgical nurse and woman of the world. Her tensely platonic romance with a married surgeon ends when his broken, unbreathing body is airlifted out by helicopter; she throws her pent-up passion into a wild affair with a soldier who happens to be her dead brother’s best friend. In the second part of the book, after the war, Frankie seems to experience every possible bad break. A drawback of the story is that none of the secondary characters in her life are fully three-dimensional: Her dismissive, chauvinistic father and tight-lipped, pill-popping mother, her fellow nurses, and her various love interests are more plot devices than people. You’ll wish you could have gone to Vegas and placed a bet on the ending—while it’s against all the odds, you’ll see it coming from a mile away.

A dramatic, vividly detailed reconstruction of a little-known aspect of the Vietnam War.

Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024

ISBN: 9781250178633

Page Count: 480

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023

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THE THINGS WE DO FOR LOVE

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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