On Mystic Lake (Ballantine Reader's Circle)
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| On Mystic Lake (Ballantine Reader's Circle) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Annie Colwater’s husband has just confessed that he’s in love with a younger woman. Devastated, Annie retreats to the small town where she grew up. There, she is reunited with her first love, Nick Delacroix, a recent widower who is unable to cope with his silent, emotionally scarred young daughter. Together, the three of them begin to heal. But just when Annie believes she’s been given a second chance at happiness, her world is turned upside down again, and she is forced to make a choice that no woman in love should ever have to make. . . .
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What do you do when everything you hold dear, everything you believe yourself to be, proves not to be true? Like Scarlett O'Hara, you go home, if not to Tara, then to the last place that you felt like you. Award-winning author Kristin Hannah makes her hardcover debut by taking readers to just such a place in On Mystic Lake. As her only child leaves to study abroad and her husband admits his love for a younger woman, Annie Colwater feels invisible. Having devoted herself to being the best wife and mother she could be for the last 20 years, Annie no longer knows who she is. She heads home to her father and to Mystic, Washington--where she grew up, where the dreams she barely remembers first blossomed, and where her first love, Nick Delacroix, still lives. Back in Mystic, Annie receives a healthy dose of perspective: Nick's wife has recently committed suicide, leaving Nick to find solace in the bottom of a Scotch bottle while his 6-year-old daughter, Izzie--who hasn't spoken since her mother's death--is doing her best to "disappear" just like Mommy. Annie volunteers to care for Izzie, since Nick cannot understand what his grieving daughter needs. And in the process, Annie recovers herself, the woman she thought gone forever, while Nick realizes that his future lies with Annie and Izzie. Just when the future starts to look bright for the three, Annie is faced with a devastating choice between the life she thought had left her behind, and a new beginning with Nick and Izzie, who helped to unearth her forgotten dreams. Kristin Hannah has produced a treasure of a book, one that will make you cry and will strike a chord in anyone who has ever had to pick up the pieces and start over. --Alison Trinkle
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| Reader Reviews Below Sorted by Newest First | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 06-24-08 | 5 | (NA) |
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This is a lovely story about love and loss. Kristin Hannah has a wonderful way of weaving a story and developing characters. I felt particularly connected to Annie and her journey of love, betrayal, and self-discovery. While this story may have been a bit predictable, it was incredibly tender and sweet. This was my second KH book (Firefly Lane--VERY good!), and most certainly not the last.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-11-30 03:18:27 EST)
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| 04-26-08 | 3 | (NA) |
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On Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah was a cut above most contemporary romances. It is a story about a wealthy 39 year-old Stamford graduate (heroine) who finds herself dumped by her handsome, successful but unfaithful husband, after 20 years of marriage. After dropping their 17 year old daughter Natalie at the airport for her senior year in England, Annie's husband, Blake tells her he wants a divorce and he is in love with an attorney from his office.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-06-20 02:17:22 EST)
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| 01-25-08 | 4 | (NA) |
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On the day Annie's only child leaves for London, headed toward adulthood, Annie's husband announces he's fallen in love with someone else. Annie does what most middle-aged cast offs do: she leaves her big city life for her small hometown. Although many writers have beaten this premise to death, Ms. Hannah manages to invoke enough distinctiveness to make "On Mystic Lake" a unique and engaging read.
Once resituated in Mystic, Annie discovers an old friend, Nick, whose life is an even larger misfortune. Jumping quickly into her typical fixer mode, Annie takes over the car of Nick's highly distressed young daughter while assisting him expunge his demons. Once the healing process is underway, and Annie begins to see a light at the end of her own tunnel, the author throws Annie several twists, including a unplanned pregnancy, her perceptive daughter's timely return from London and an emotional decision where Annie must choose between doing the right thing ad what is right. The story is tight and moves quickly. We easily care about the characters and wish for their happiness. Their resolution is left until the end, leaving us wondering until the last pages. Themes of maternal loss, personal growth during grief, and finding one's own worth pervade this story. "On Mystic Lake" is charming entertainment for a lazy afternoon. www.randomwonderer.blogspot.com (Review Data Last Updated: 2008-04-27 02:18:54 EST)
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| 11-25-07 | 5 | (NA) |
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After her husband unexpectedly asks for a divorce Annie Colwater returns to her home town to think things through. Nick Delacroix was her first love. His wife has recently died and Annie takes over the job of babysitting his daughter Izzy. Nick is a cop and stays out way too late, drinks too much and pretty much ignores his daughter because he can't deal with his own pain. The part I thought was most interesting was concerning Izzy. She felt that she was disappearing. Her fingers, her hand, her arm. She really believed that she was slowly becoming invisible. Maybe from the lack of love and attention from her one remaining parent. She did see her mother as a beautiful ghost by the water and spoke to her several times. As Izzy became more confident and her father began to really see her again, her fingers began to reappear little by little. Very interesting premise! I enjoyed this book very much. The family dynamics were so real and so relative to our times. Children feeling lost and disappearing right before our eyes. Only love brought Izzy back.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2008-01-28 02:28:41 EST)
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| 11-05-07 | 4 | (NA) |
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i loved this story of love lost and found. kh is wonderful getting the feelings down pat. the only point i did not like in the book is where she names her daughter after her lovers dead wife, even if she was her best friend. nick chose kathy over annie when they were young. i think that i would be very uncomfortable with kathleen as a first name, maybe the middle name. it just doesn't feel right.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-12-15 02:29:44 EST)
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| 07-20-07 | 4 | (NA) |
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I picked this book up at a vacation rental we were staying this summer for something to read while I was there for the week, it's not normally what I'd pick out to read. I started reading it on the beach, and totally got sucked in! FInished it within a few days. I'm normally hard to please, hard to find a book to keep my focus and keep me entertained, but there were enough trials/tribulations/and twists to keep me going. I really identified with the emotions and thoughts of the Annie, the main character. All the characters really grew on me and I'm wishing there'd be a sequel!
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-12-15 02:29:44 EST)
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| 10-01-05 | 5 | 3\3 |
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It's hard for me to find a Kristin Hannah book I don't like. This one was great...how can you not fall in love with Izzy and Nick? I was happy with Annie's final decision. Blake was just a pompous specimen of a man...one that gives men a bad name!
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-12-15 02:29:44 EST)
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| 12-22-04 | 5 | 5\5 |
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On Mystic Lake is another very hard-to-put down book! I truly enjoyed it from beginning to end.
Annelise, the main character of the story had a devastating blow when on the way home from dropping her daughter off at the airport for college, her husband says he wants a divorce. Blake told her he hasn't been in love with her for years, and that he'd been having an affair with Suzannah for a very long time. Thrown into a deep depression of course over that awful news, Annilise returns to her home on Mystic Lake, where she grew up to her father's house. Her father provides the love and comfort , support she needs at this trying time, while Annilise is trying to figure out what to do. It doesn't take too long though, when gradually, she begins to take new steps in another direction. She meets up with Nick, an old love from high school. He and his 6-year-old daughter are terribly grief-stricken from the loss of his wife Kathy. His daughter hasn't spoken a single word since the loss of her mother, and Nick is becoming an alcoholic. Nick needs someone in his life not only to help him recover, but moreso for his daughter. This is where Annilise steps in, watching Izzy for Nick, and yet at the same time, providing the child with a motherly figure, which she so desparately needs. As time goes along in the story, Annilise falls deeply in love again with Nick. Gradually, he tries to overcome his battles with grief, and alcoholism, and his daughter Izzy, with a lot of help from Annilise starts to talk again. Things begint o take a wonderful turn, until Annilise is once again dealt another blow. (Review Data Last Updated: 2007-12-15 02:29:44 EST)
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| 11-09-04 | 5 | 4\4 |
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This is my first book by Kristin Hannah. I'm not sure why I read this book, it's not my norm, but boy am I glad I did. This book was so engrossing I found myself reading it every chance I got. The characters were so vivid I felt like I knew them all.
(Review Data Last Updated: 2007-12-15 02:29:44 EST)
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