McComas has written a pleasing fairy tale that will satisfy many readers. But those looking for a more nuanced handling of...
She left her hometown 20 years ago, and no one has heard from her since. Is she even still alive? What could have been so horrific as to not only drive her away but also keep her away for so long?
McComas (Necessary Changes, 2001, etc.) gives Hannah Benson an intriguing past to uncover. After her mother and sister have passed away, leaving her teenaged niece, Anna, in need of a guardian, Hannah gets a call out of the blue from Grady Steadman, her childhood sweetheart. Now sheriff of Clearfield, Va., Grady must persuade Hannah to come back for Anna. It could be a tough sell: Hannah has spent the last 20 years making a very safe life for herself, avoiding romance and even building a career in insurance. Little does Grady suspect that coming home will force Hannah to face the demons of her past: an abusive father, a dysfunctional family and a town that let it all happen. Of course, the reader can guess all this within the first few pages. Despite her misgivings, Hannah will do the right thing and return to Clearfield to take care of her family’s loose ends. Despite the emotional damage inflicted by her abusive father, she will easily come to love again. With a last name like “Steadman,” of course, Grady will become the steady man in Hannah’s life as she confronts her demons. Her niece will eventually come to bond with her Aunt Hannah. And “what happened to Hannah” will be revealed over the course of the novel. Yet “what happened to Hannah” is so heavily hinted at that when it is revealed it comes as little surprise.
McComas has written a pleasing fairy tale that will satisfy many readers. But those looking for a more nuanced handling of the repercussions of childhood trauma should look elsewhere.Pub Date: Feb. 7, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-06-208478-1
Page Count: 352
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2012
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s...
The traumatic homecoming of a wounded warrior.
The daughter of alcoholics who left her orphaned at 17, Jolene “Jo” Zarkades found her first stable family in the military: She’s served over two decades, first in the army, later with the National Guard. A helicopter pilot stationed near Seattle, Jo copes as competently at home, raising two daughters, Betsy and Lulu, while trying to dismiss her husband Michael’s increasing emotional distance. Jo’s mettle is sorely tested when Michael informs her flatly that he no longer loves her. Four-year-old Lulu clamors for attention while preteen Betsy, mean-girl-in-training, dismisses as dweeby her former best friend, Seth, son of Jo’s confidante and fellow pilot, Tami. Amid these challenges comes the ultimate one: Jo and Tami are deployed to Iraq. Michael, with the help of his mother, has to take over the household duties, and he rapidly learns that parenting is much harder than his wife made it look. As Michael prepares to defend a PTSD-afflicted veteran charged with Murder I for killing his wife during a dissociative blackout, he begins to understand what Jolene is facing and to revisit his true feelings for her. When her helicopter is shot down under insurgent fire, Jo rescues Tami from the wreck, but a young crewman is killed. Tami remains in a coma and Jo, whose leg has been amputated, returns home to a difficult rehabilitation on several fronts. Her nightmares in which she relives the crash and other horrors she witnessed, and her pain, have turned Jo into a person her daughters now fear (which in the case of bratty Betsy may not be such a bad thing). Jo can't forgive Michael for his rash words. Worse, she is beginning to remind Michael more and more of his homicide client. Characterization can be cursory: Michael’s earlier callousness, left largely unexplained, undercuts the pathos of his later change of heart.
Less bleak than the subject matter might warrant—Hannah’s default outlook is sunny—but still, a wrenching depiction of war’s aftermath.Pub Date: Jan. 31, 2012
ISBN: 978-0-312-57720-9
Page Count: 400
Publisher: St. Martin's
Review Posted Online: Dec. 18, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2012
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