A warm but heavy-handed tale of love and faith.
An angel saves a firefighter from a burning building, but his spiritual recovery requires some mortal intervention.
Hackett’s sophomore novel gives Sean Magee from Proof of Heaven (2011) his own story. Having fled Massachusetts in the wake of his nephew’s death and his sister’s marriage, Sean has constructed a new life for himself in LA, of course, the City of Angels. A firefighter on long shifts, he numbs his grief by risking his life each day and avoids calling home. But his luck runs out when a sudden eruption of flames traps him in a house, unable to find an exit. About to give up hope, he prays. He promises God that he'll right a wrong, a wrong that has something to do with a certain Ciara in Italy. And with that prayer, an angel directs Sean to the only escape route and a fall that leaves him burned and broken but mercifully not paralyzed. In addition to his physical injuries, Sean panics that his hard-won sobriety may be at stake. But in short order, a flight of real-life angels gathers to see him through recovery, including fellow firefighter James, a food addict. Brother-in-law Gaspar arrives to set up home-based care with nurse-and-physical-therapist Tom, an exercise fanatic and veteran recovering from his own wounds. Service-dog trainer Libby, a recovering heroin addict, rounds out the team with Chief, the instantly smitten yellow Labrador. Driven to repair his body as soon as possible, Sean relies on his friends, little realizing how much they will depend upon him, as well. Hackett employs the angel metaphor to mind-numbing effect: Everyone who helps another becomes an angel; everyone who doubts the existence of angels is proven wrong; everyone who needs an angel in turn becomes an angel to help someone else.
A warm but heavy-handed tale of love and faith.Pub Date: Nov. 4, 2014
ISBN: 978-0-06-227995-8
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Sept. 29, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2014
BOOK REVIEW
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
SEEN & HEARD
BOOK TO SCREEN
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
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
BOOK TO SCREEN
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