They meet on a rooftop in Boston on the night Ryle loses a patient and Lily attends her abusive father’s funeral. Hoover’s ( November 9, 2015, etc.) latest tackles the difficult subject of domestic violence with romantic tenderness and emotional heft.Īt first glance, the couple is edgy but cute: Lily Bloom runs a flower shop for people who hate flowers Ryle Kincaid is a surgeon who says he never wants to get married or have kids. (First printing of 100,000 first serial to Good Housekeeping Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections) Hannah’s characters indulge in so many stages of the weeps, from glassy eyes to flat-out sobs, that tear ducts are almost bound to stay dry. At this point, it’s perfectly clear to Annie-and the reader-that she’s justified in taking her newborn daughter and driving back north. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn’t even stick around to support his wife. Still, when Annie learns that she’s pregnant not with Nick’s but with Blake’s child, she heads back to her empty life in the Malibu Colony.

And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. Annie spruces up Nick’s home on Mystic Lake and sends “Izzy-bear” back into speech mode. What is she to do with her shattered life? Well, she returns to dad’s house in the small town of Mystic, cuts off all her hair (for a different look), and goes to work as a nanny for lawman Nick Delacroix, whose wife has committed suicide, whose young daughter Izzy refuses to speak, and who himself has descended into despair and alcoholism. Although a Stanford graduate, Annie has known only a life of perfect wifedom: matching Blake’s ties to his suits and cooking meals from Gourmet magazine.

Here, 40ish Annie Colwater, returns to Washington State after her husband, high-powered Los Angeles lawyer Blake, tells her he’s found another (younger) woman and wants a divorce. Everyone must have got the Olympic Peninsula memo for this spring because, as of this reading, authors Hannah, Nora Roberts, and JoAnn Ross have all placed their newest romances in or near the Quinault rain forest. Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance.

On Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah