Kristin Hannah is to Washington state as Nickolas Sparks is to North Carolina.
How's that for a comparison?
If you haven't read from these two authors it basically means that they write almost exclusively about the same places.
Interesting to me. Makes me feel like I know what to expect from them because of their consistency. I can imagine similar places whenever I read and it makes for coherence...
ya know?
It also helps that Kristin Hannah pulled a cool maneuver referring to characters and places from a previous book of hers called "On Mystic Lake". I think of it like Pixar does with it's animated movies where it subtly draws in characters from previous movies (only if you know what to look for).
A brief explanation of the story:
A girl shows up a poe-dunk town called Rain Valley with seemingly no people skills. Ellie, a small town police chief, has never had so much excitement and doesn't know what to do with this child. Even more suspicious is that no one appears to be looking for this child....
At the same time Julia, a psychiatrist from Los Angeles is wrapping up a trial she is involved in. One of her patients had recently gone on shooting rampage at her school and Julia, her psychiatrist, was being pinned as responsible for not catching 'the signs'.
The tie the two situations hold is that Ellie and Julia are sisters, both originally from River Valley. When Ellie was faced with a case that demanded the best of the best in child psychiatry who better then her sister who needed a pick-me-up?
Little was it known that Julia and Alice (the name the little girl assumes) would fall in love. Not only is Julia Alice's doctor she's quickly becomes the girl's mothering figure. That is until the girl's father turns up.
Julia has said, all along, that she would be willing to give Alice back to her rightful parent but when her biological father turns our to be a man convicted of murder -- things don't go as planned.
Convicted apparently doesn't mean guilty in this case because although he was sent to jail the courts have released Alices' father on lack of evidence. Turns out he didn't kill Alice's mother as Alice
Long story short there ^^ Alice leads the group to the place where she and her mother were held captive by some one other then her father (as the jury had originally thought).
So now that her father isn't a "bad guy" and in fact a victim himself is he unfit to be Alice's father? The simple answer is yes because Julia is the only person so far in Alice's known existence who can handle such a special case. However, family trumps everything -- unfortunately.
I won't spoil the end, but that should leave you hanging on what is best for Alice.
In the mean time of everyone handling the feral child situation the main characters also share the need to find love in one another. Ellie falls in love (which she doesn't realize until about 400 pages in) with her child hood buddy who has worked beside her for years. Julia falls in love with the smooth talking, well looking small town doctor.
They also all share some past heart ache...
-Ellie is moving on from her two failed marriages and her many relationships and during this time she realizes that it has been her selfishness that has stood in the way.
-Julie is moving on from her failed career in a big city and finding her niche back her home town that maybe she shouldn't have left in the first place.
-Max (the doctor) is living his life without his son (who died in a car accident) and his ex-wife who has moved on with her life.
-Cal (Ellie's friend and new found lover) is learning that staying in an unhappy marriage doesn't make it work.
Negatives: I feel like maybe we spent too much time 'in the middle' because the end was hurried and the begging didn't set an appropriate pace. I often question what time frame we were in. I didn't like that Hannah had Ellie kissing Alice's father... it seemed out of place and underdeveloped.
Positives: I liked reading a book that was just as centered around a mother's love as a child's. I also appreciate that Hannah doesn't make everything 'right'; There was no making everyone happy in the situation of where to put Alice.
So fifty on the balances. I will probably read more Kristin Hannah books in the future.
I won't spoil the end, but that should leave you hanging on what is best for Alice.
In the mean time of everyone handling the feral child situation the main characters also share the need to find love in one another. Ellie falls in love (which she doesn't realize until about 400 pages in) with her child hood buddy who has worked beside her for years. Julia falls in love with the smooth talking, well looking small town doctor.
They also all share some past heart ache...
-Ellie is moving on from her two failed marriages and her many relationships and during this time she realizes that it has been her selfishness that has stood in the way.
-Julie is moving on from her failed career in a big city and finding her niche back her home town that maybe she shouldn't have left in the first place.
-Max (the doctor) is living his life without his son (who died in a car accident) and his ex-wife who has moved on with her life.
-Cal (Ellie's friend and new found lover) is learning that staying in an unhappy marriage doesn't make it work.
Negatives: I feel like maybe we spent too much time 'in the middle' because the end was hurried and the begging didn't set an appropriate pace. I often question what time frame we were in. I didn't like that Hannah had Ellie kissing Alice's father... it seemed out of place and underdeveloped.
Positives: I liked reading a book that was just as centered around a mother's love as a child's. I also appreciate that Hannah doesn't make everything 'right'; There was no making everyone happy in the situation of where to put Alice.
So fifty on the balances. I will probably read more Kristin Hannah books in the future.
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