Formulaic but an effective blend of sentiment and suspense, somewhat less contrived than Rice’s last (Summer Light, 2001).
Dark doings in Connecticut.
Defense attorney John O’Rourke knew he’d win no popularity contests when he agreed to represent Greg Merrill, the serial killer who liked to torture his female victims until barely still alive, then leave them bound to breakwaters or jetties until high tide drowned them. John is uncomfortably aware that even his own children don’t think much of his legal heroics on behalf of such a monster. Teenaged Teddy just wishes his father did something else for a living, but young Maggie still adores her handsome daddy. Both children are coping with the aftermath of their mother’s recent death in a car accident—geez, wonders Teddy, can’t Dad stop hanging around Death Row and come home once in a while? Several babysitters have come and gone, and John is desperate. No wonder he mistakes Kate Harris, a quiet stranger, for another candidate from the agency, while she’s really a marine biologist looking for her missing sister Willa. Kate and John’s life stories begin to unfold: John’s wife had an affair with the local lighthouse keeper; Kate’s sister had an affair with Kate’s charming but irresponsible husband Andrew. So, yes, Kate and John are Free to Love Again. But first . . . where’s Willa? Last seen at a local bed-and-breakfast, Willa has seemingly vanished. Danger lurks! Though Merrill is in prison, a copycat has struck, leaving his victim to drown on a breakwater. Will Willa be next? John consults psychiatrist Dr. Beckwith, who explains the inner workings of Merrill’s disturbed mind and mentions a creepy new development: one of his patients, Caleb, is Merrill’s pen pal. Caleb is the son of the lighthouse keeper—and an isolated lighthouse, Kate thinks, is an ideal place to hide someone, alive or dead. A gothic denouement on a stormy night leads up a twisting staircase into a secret dungeon.
Formulaic but an effective blend of sentiment and suspense, somewhat less contrived than Rice’s last (Summer Light, 2001).Pub Date: Feb. 4, 2003
ISBN: 0-553-80224-0
Page Count: 319
Publisher: Bantam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
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
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose...
Sparks (The Longest Ride, 2013, etc.) serves up another heaping helping of sentimental Southern bodice-rippage.
Gone are the blondes of yore, but otherwise the Sparks-ian formula is the same: a decent fellow from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches falls in love with a decent girl from a good family who’s gone through some rough patches—and is still suffering the consequences. The guy is innately intelligent but too quick to throw a punch, the girl beautiful and scary smart. If you hold a fatalistic worldview, then you’ll know that a love between them can end only in tears. If you hold a Sparks-ian one, then true love will prevail, though not without a fight. Voilà: plug in the character names, and off the story goes. In this case, Colin Hancock is the misunderstood lad who’s decided to reform his hard-knuckle ways but just can’t keep himself from connecting fist to face from time to time. Maria Sanchez is the dedicated lawyer in harm’s way—and not just because her boss is a masher. Simple enough. All Colin has to do is punch the partner’s lights out: “The sexual harassment was bad enough, but Ken was a bully as well, and Colin knew from his own experience that people like that didn’t stop abusing their power unless someone made them. Or put the fear of God into them.” No? No, because bound up in Maria’s story, wrinkled with the doings of an equally comely sister, there’s a stalker and a closet full of skeletons. Add Colin’s back story, and there’s a perfect couple in need of constant therapy, as well as a menacing cop. Get Colin and Maria to smooching, and the plot thickens as the storylines entangle. Forget about love—can they survive the evil that awaits them out in the kudzu-choked woods?
More of the same: Sparks has his recipe, and not a bit of it is missing here. It’s the literary equivalent of high fructose corn syrup, stickily sweet but irresistible.Pub Date: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4555-2061-9
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: Sept. 30, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2015
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