A perfect plot for a Meryl Streep or Diane Lane happily-ever-after movie.
A lighthearted novel about a widow who suddenly decides to re-marry on Christmas Day.
The mystery concerns the bride's choice of a groom. She won't tell her family. She won't even tell her potential husband, one of three suitors who have proposed. Gaby Summerhill, 54, is a teacher, widowed for three years, her treasured husband dead of a heart attack. Gaby has decided she's grieved long enough. And so she makes her decision, and then records a DVD to send to her four children announcing her puzzling plan. The children are scattered, busy with their own lives, and Gaby is certain the mystery will bring them home to Massachusetts for the holiday. Oldest daughter Claire lives with her husband and children in South Carolina, but Hank works rarely and smokes marijuana regularly. Claire's troubles are aggravated by teenager Gus, who's intent on living up to the aphorism "like father, like son." Although Gaby's daughter Lizzie lives nearby, she has been overwhelmed by her husband's critical illness. Emily is an over-stressed, high-powered New York City attorney. Son Seth works in Boston at a temporary job waiting for his novel to be snapped up by a big-name publisher. Patterson and co-author DiLallo unfold the plot with snappy but cliché-littered dialogue. There is minimal character development and only enough back story to knit the tale together. Gaby is an idealized protagonist, the sort who heads a volunteer crew to cook a daily breakfast for the homeless. Her groom might be Tom, a lifelong friend; Jacob, a rabbi; or Martin, her husband's younger brother, all of whom proposed on the same day. The authors maintain the suspense, with Gaby and her brood riding a roller-coaster of family problems, right up to the wedding day.
A perfect plot for a Meryl Streep or Diane Lane happily-ever-after movie.Pub Date: Oct. 17, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-316-09739-0
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2011
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
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