A compelling exploration of self, family, love, and the power of new beginnings.
After a year in a coma, Annie Rush wakes up to a world without her husband, the TV she developed, and a wealth of memories that put her life into context, but as her body and mind heal, she puts her faith in second chances.
As a successful cooking-show producer who’s married to the gorgeous star, Annie knows she’s lucky, so she overlooks the occasional arguments and her husband’s penchant for eclipsing her. She’s especially excited the day she finds out she’s pregnant and, ignoring her typical steadfast schedule, rushes to the set to tell him. And discovers him making love to his onscreen assistant. Stunned, Annie leaves, trying to figure out her next move, and is struck on the head by falling on-set machinery. She wakes a year later in her Vermont hometown, as weak as a kitten and suffering from amnesia. As the days pass, however, she finds clues and markers regarding her life, and many of her memories begin to fill in. She remembers Fletcher, the first boy she loved, and how their timing was always off. She wanted to leave her family’s maple farm behind and explore the world—especially once her cooking-themed film school project was discovered and she was enfolded into the LA world of a successful food show. Fletcher intended to follow her, until life created big roadblocks for their relationship that they could never manage to overcome. Now, however, Annie’s husband has divorced her while Fletcher has settled in Switchback, and just as things look like they may finally click for Fletcher and Annie, her pre-accident life comes calling again. Wiggs (Starlight on Willow Lake, 2015, etc.) examines one woman’s journey into losing everything and then winning it all back through rediscovering her passions and being true to herself, tackling a complicated dual storyline with her typical blend of authenticity and sensitivity.
A compelling exploration of self, family, love, and the power of new beginnings.Pub Date: Aug. 9, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-242543-0
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Morrow/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 2, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.
A violent surfacing of adolescence (which has little in common with Tarkington's earlier, broadly comic, Seventeen) has a compulsive impact.
"Nobody big except me" is the dream world of Holden Caulfield and his first person story is down to the basic, drab English of the pre-collegiate. For Holden is now being bounced from fancy prep, and, after a vicious evening with hall- and roommates, heads for New York to try to keep his latest failure from his parents. He tries to have a wild evening (all he does is pay the check), is terrorized by the hotel elevator man and his on-call whore, has a date with a girl he likes—and hates, sees his 10 year old sister, Phoebe. He also visits a sympathetic English teacher after trying on a drunken session, and when he keeps his date with Phoebe, who turns up with her suitcase to join him on his flight, he heads home to a hospital siege. This is tender and true, and impossible, in its picture of the old hells of young boys, the lonesomeness and tentative attempts to be mature and secure, the awful block between youth and being grown-up, the fright and sickness that humans and their behavior cause the challenging, the dramatization of the big bang. It is a sorry little worm's view of the off-beat of adult pressure, of contemporary strictures and conformity, of sentiment….
A strict report, worthy of sympathy.Pub Date: June 15, 1951
ISBN: 0316769177
Page Count: -
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: Nov. 2, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1951
BOOK REVIEW
SEEN & HEARD
SEEN & HEARD
APPRECIATIONS
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