The storyline was complex and well written. The characters stories perfectly dovetailed with each others. Thank you Alice Hoffman!

As always, Alice Hoffman once again shows her self to be a sensitive and interesting writer. She allows us to appreciate the spiritual side of life and love. Excellent book!

I think I've read everything Alice Hoffman has ever written. In The Third Angel, Ms. Hoffman takes you places you wish you were or want to be. There's always a touch of the mystical. Something magical. She didn't let me down with Third Angel. I couldn't put it down. With a child at home, it's hard to find time to read. I found time for this book. I cried. And wished it hadn't ended. A nice summer read. Enjoy!

This book was so great! I felt like I was actually inside the book, living right along next to the characters, it was that profound. I loved the going back in time, you really get the answers to all the questions you've been wondering about. Hoffman is truly a unique writer and her books are magical and lyrical. I think I'll sit down tonight and read all her other books that I haven't read yet!

I was so happy to come across this new book of Alice Hoffman's at my local library. I have read all her books and wasn't aware she had a new one out. This may be the best one yet!!

It is the story of love and loss. Tragedy, choices and consequences. It begins in 1999, the next story is 1966 and then finally 1952. All the women in this story somehow interweave into each others lives from future back to the past.

I can only say you will begin to read and immerse yourself in the world of Alice Hoffman and her wonderful writing style and won't put this book down until you have read the last word. She can write about the dark, troubling nuances of a person with such conviction and we see a lot of redemption and faith come trough as well.

I loved this book and am thankful for this author.

For the longest time, I'd wanted to read one of Hoffman's books. I'm sorry I'd chosen this one.

And I'm also angry that I it took such effort to get through; the final 75 pages were actioned strictly by discipline alone.

I can't recall when I last read a novel that so was NOT what I had been led to believe, especially with all the accompanying blurbs, the acclaim, the press.

Pedestrian.

Wholly lacking energy.

A decided lack of literary merit.

At times I felt I was reading a bullet-point summary.

Bland, bland, bland...and worse, contrived blandness.

I have no idea if this novel is a good representation of Hoffman's talent. I do know that it is a good representation of bad storytelling, bad craft, bad execution.

In a nutshell, the premise of 'The Third Angel' was well beyond her skills. Indeed, her reach FAR exceeded her grasp. If you want to see how a masterful writer handles multiple story threads, weaving a magical fabric in a truly artistic way, try 'Fall On Your Knees' by Ann-Marie MacDonald. In fact, I'm thinking that doing that next is the only remedy to this awful taste in my mouth.

Alice Hoffman has a gift of creative writing, but there is not much substance here in "The Third Angel". About 2/3 of the way through, I felt this book was just pulling me down, down, down and for no good reason-- and toward no particular end. No message to make the dreariness of these stories about unhappy people worth the time to read them, other than the fact that life is random in what it dishes out, and that lots of people make stupid choices. How depressing! This I can get by listening to the nightly news.

Also, most of the time I did not identify with the main characters in the 3 phases of the book. My own mother died of cancer while I was a young girl but nothing about the illness or death of a mother rang true for me. Perhaps this book feels more true for those who mourn the death of a spouse or child; other themes in the stories.

"The Third Angel" was a concept that was not very clearly impressed into my mind. I would have liked more development on that concept. It may have helped the book a lot.

Let me explain how beautiful this book is. I read it, straight through, and burst into sobbing tears as
I read the last two pages.

As I sat, in front of a hundred people, in a crowded airport gate in Philadelphia. And I didn't care, not one single bit.

I had a good cry, wiped my face, and immediately turned back to page one.

That's how beautiful this book is.

Paula in Tampa, FL

"The doctor believed there were three angels," Alice Hoffman wrote in her 2008 novel The Third Angel, "The Angel of Life, who rode along with them most nights. The Angel of Death, who appeared wearing his funeral clothes on those visits when there was no hope. And then there was the Third Angel. The one who walked among us, who sometimes lay sick in bed, begging for human compassion." Hoffman's novel magically intertwines the stories of three women and their life's quests for faith, love, acceptance, and meaning.

We are first introduced to Maddy Heller, an American lawyer in London for her sister Allie's wedding to Paul in 1999. The themes of Maddy's life are misguided love, jealousy, and faith. Maddy is a very lonely, insecure woman who is desperately jealous of her sister. She never feels satisfied with her life. Maddy resents her father for leaving them when she was a child, her mother for loving her sister more than herself, and her sister for being "perfect." She falls in love with a man whom she knows does not love her back. She longs for him to call her, all the while professing that she has no faith in love or marriage. She has spent her life searching for something to believe in. A bundle of contradictions and raw emotion, Maddy is a realistic, complicated, and memorable character.

The second portion of the book deals with the story of Frieda Lewis, the mother of Paul. Frieda was present in the first chapter, but it is here that her character truly unfolds. Her story takes place in 1966 London. Frieda is the intelligent daughter of a country doctor who moves to London in search for something spectacular. She works at the Lion Park Hotel as a maid and falls for an up-and-coming rock star, Jamie. In the end, Frieda married another man because he was appropriate, and Jamie was killed in an accident. She wrote the songs that made Jamie famous, yet she is still alive and with her infant son because he rejected her. "[The Third Angel]'s the most curious," Hoffman writes, "You can't even tell if he's an angel or not. You think you're doing him a kindness, you think you're the one taking care of him, while all the while, he's the one who's saving your life."

The final portion ties the stories together flawlessly. It is the story of Lucy Green, the mother of Maddy and Allie Heller. The story takes place in 1952, when Lucy (a twelve-year-old) joins her father and step-mother in London to attend a wedding. She befriends a man named Michael Macklin at the Lion Park Hotel. He is the only adult who takes the time to talk to and understand the child. The reader will recognize his name from the two previous stories. In Lucy, we find the concepts of the need for acceptance and love, the desire to be heard, and uncontrollable grief for something you believe is your fault.

The themes of love and marriage run through all three story lines. But Hoffman does not romanticize them in the least. "There was good love, and there was bad love," she wrote. "There was the kind that helped raise a person above her failings and there was the desperate sort that struck when someone least expected it." Her concept of marriage is of a failed institution that does not necessarily work and certainly isn't "happily ever after."

Another important element in the novel is faith. All three main characters are searching for something to believe in.

The Third Angel is an excellent book with the power to break your heart and make you look into your own soul as it delves deeply into human nature and motivations. Alice Hoffman's novel is meticulously detailed and flows smoothly. Her characters are deep, believable, and so human. I enjoyed this book immensely. This was the first of Hoffman's novels that I have read, and from this experience I wouldn't hesitate to buy her books again.

by Jennifer Melville
for Story Circle Book Reviews
reviewing books by, for, and about women

I was so excited to read the latest book by Alice Hoffman that I actually bought the hardcover (I'm a paperback fan)and now wish I would have waited for the paperback version. I would have to say it was just, OK. I am a HUGE Hoffman fan and, to date, my all-time favorite book of her's is "The Ice Queen", where I fell in love with the characters immediately. In this latest book I found it a bit confusing and had to go back several times to make sure I had the characters all connected right and I found the story line to be a bit rushed. I did, as always, enjoy her style of writing but "The Third Angel" won't go up on my "must read" shelf and I won't be passing it on to friends, just re-selling it to a book store. Sorry, but I'm still a fan and am looking forward to her next book with fingers crossed that it will sweep me away as many of her books do!

This was the first novel I have read by Hoffman, and I have to say I was completely bored to tears. The plot may have had some potential in the hands of another writer, but the writing style used was just completely and utterly dull. The whole thing was a sleeper and written with no emotion whatsoever. I forced myself through it in the hopes that at some point something would change and Hoffman would out some sort of emphasis or excitement somewhere! But no, nothing. I'd rather watch paint dry. I would not recommend this book to anyone!

Oh my Gosh! I just finnished this book today and let me tell you..it was AMAZING! I absolutely loved it. All three parts were gripping and by the end of the book I was hanging on every word. This is my new favorite!

I liked the stories and the plot very much, but what's with the writing style? For me the whole book read like a children's book. Short sentences, not enough detail, description or feeling... I don't see how anyone can actually like this type of writing. I enjoyed her writing in her book "The Ice Queen" much much more.

Unrequited love and betrayal interlaces its way though Alice Hoffman's three-pronged contemporary ghost story. The Third Angel is about how life and death - and that shady place in between - can affect three people in remarkably different ways. A literal smorgasbord of finally wrought observations, Hoffman's characters are linked to the Lion Park Hotel in Knightsbridge, an argument in Room 707, and the shocking ramifications of an affair that went horribly wrong.

The book begins as Maddie grudgingly arrives in London from New York to attend to her sister, Allie's wedding. Recently the two sisters have grown apart, with Maddie quite dismissive of Allie's too-handsome fiancé Paul Lewis, surprised that her sister, usually so practical and smart had fallen for such a vacuous man like him. But attraction of course is a very strange thing; indeed it has a life of its own. When one night at dinner, Maddie looks over at Paul, she feels something go through her and there's a moment of doubt, the thud of the pulse, "the quick image of the disaster to come."

Maddie views heartbreak is a game and nothing more, a little flirting behind Allie's back, but when she discovers that Paul is dying of cancer, this unforeseen circumstance causes her to question her loyalty to her sister, and also for Allie to question her commitment to Paul. Meanwhile, Paul's mother Frieda Lewis is only nineteen when in 1966 she comes to London from Reading to work for four months at the Lion's Park Hotel. Frieda refuses to follow the path of her father, happy to pursue a measure of independence working as a maid rather than going to university to study medicine.

When she unexpectedly becomes infatuated with James, an ambitious pop singer, she identifies a kindred spirit, for James is also the odd man out. This vulnerable and brittle man has spent his life battling pain, lately snorting heroin with his wealthy girlfriend Stella to block out most of his troubles. But ironically it is Frieda not Stella who becomes James' promised muse, Frieda giving him an excuse to unburden his soul. Both of them end up bound to each other by equal parts adoration and affection, their mutual feelings proving to be much deeper and more urgent than either of them expected.

Only when the bookish and taciturn twelve-year-old Lucy Green arrives in London in 1953 with her father Ben to attend the wedding of Bryn, her step mother Charlotte's sister, does Hoffman's multi-layered narrative come full circle and we learn the mystery surrounding the events in room 707 and the significance of the drunken Teddy Healy and why he hangs around the hotel every night. It is Teddy and Lucy who have the most connection to the events that took place in 707, the eventual meeting signifying a total connection of thought and emotion. Part of the attraction of Lucy is that she's extremely aware for her age and she spends a lot of time wondering why people were put on the earth and how she might right the wrongs of the world.

All of Hoffman's characters are plagued by the irrationalities of love: Maddie and Allie are almost torn asunder by their conflicting desires for Paul; Frieda finds herself encapsulated by London of swinging sixties, with her thick black eyeliner, miniskirts, and blue jeans with hoop earrings, all to attract James, her one true love. Even Lucy, believes in love letters, in romance and in destiny, becoming a go-between for the dashingly handsome Michael Macklin when he asks her to deliver letters to Bryn, Charlotte's sister, the woman he's ultimately in love with.

Throughout the course of this novel, these people are forced to bear enormous personal loss, but they also discover the colossal power of love and acceptance where love often has nothing to do with the here and now and where the "third angel" of mercy and tolerance constantly watches over them. As Lucy's story brings the narrative full circle, many of the peripheral characters undertake a reevaluation of their lives, especially the broken-down Teddy Healey as he laments his actions on that fateful night and the woman he ultimately lost to death. Mike Leonard June 08.

If I fast-forward 50 or 60 or 100 years, I envision The Third Angel being taught in a literature classroom in which the professor is discussing a literary technique called Hoffmanism, where an author writes her book so that it can be read either front to back or back to front. It is the character Allie in The Third Angel who discusses that she wrote her best-selling children's book, The Heron's Wife, in that way. And it is author Hoffman who so eloquently does it in The Third Angel. Based on the reviews by Amazon readers, I can see that some readers want to relate to the characters, and some readers just read for beautiful prose. The Third Angel delivers on both accounts. I plan to re-read it next summer, only next summer I will read Part III first, then Part II, then Part I.

REALLY GOOD STARTS FROM THE END TO THE BEGINNING SO YOU ARE DISCOVERING THINGS CONSTANTLY

I read Skylight Confessions some time ago and absolutely loved it. This book fell short of my expectations. I don't like she ended the mini stories, especially the first one involving the sisters.

A man who sleeps with his financee's sister on the eve of their wedding. A drunk, drug addicted would be singer who steals the lyrics of his muse's songs and then marries another. These are the sort of men who populate the three loosely connected novellas that make up this novel. The problem is there is nothing interesting about these guys or the women who love them who are moody, self-centered, beautiful and self-destructive. I didn't care one wit for any of them. What saves this novel somewhat is the last story of a young girl who is unwittingly used to further a love affair and is traumatized by the unexpected events that occur.

This novel is actually a collection of three, interrelated, stories told in reverse chronological order. The first third is a complex tale of sibling rivalry, revenge, reconciliation and, ultimately, understanding. The second and third stories in the book are almost a back story explanation of the first. (That is putting it simplistically, but having read the book almost two weeks ago, I can recall in detail the first story and have difficulty recollecting the second two.) The first story is a solid five star effort, the second two probably three and a half stars.

A bit slow of a reader. Started off hazy, middle got interesting, but the end was a sleeper. Would not recommend this one.

"The Third Angel" had it's moments, but alot of the book dragged. There was writing that went nowhere.
I found myself rushing through the last chapter just to find out what the deal was with Ted Healy.

Alice Hoffman's latest novel, The Third Angel, is made up of three stories woven together by a common theme of love, abandonment, and betrayal. The stories go back in time beginning with The Heron's Wife is set in 1999. Maddy has to deal with the heartache and the folly of falling in love with her sister's fiancé Paul. In 1966 Frieda falls in love with a rock star addicted to hard drugs, and in love with someone else. With another jump back in time we meet Lucy. At 12, Lucy inadvertently causes the death of two of the three people caught in a love triangle.

The Third Angel is first mentioned in The Heron's Wife. As the doctor explained, The Angel of Death and the Angel of Life are well known. One or the other would always ride with him as he made house calls. He had no say in the matter. He never knew which one was along for the ride until he arrived at the designated location.

The Third Angel is different. He walks among us, but is rarely identified as an angel. He makes mistakes and sometimes needs rescuing. We think we're rescuing him but in truth, he rescues us. The characters in The Third Angel are flawed, they fell in love at the wrong time or with the wrong person, but they find a way to move on. They fix their broken lives and eventually reach out and become The Third Angel.

The Third Angel: A Novel

I don't think this is the best Alice Hoffman, but I certainly enjoyed it more than Blue Diary, Skylight Confessions and some of her other recent books. I did enjoy the background info on some of the characters as she went back and forth from the present to the past and back again, but the ending, I thought, was very inconclusive and flat.

This work is somewhat confusing. It leaves the reader saying, so, what was the point of that?

Unquestionably, Hoffman is one of America's five best novelists now writing. Her use of language and her gift for storytelling are both stunning. She sees beauty in words; a phrase or sentence from her pen can have such impact that the reader is forced to stop in admiration for the craft and the insight. Her stories invariably bring the reader to tears.

Although her early works are notable, she reached a new level with "The Probable Future", and has turned out one stunning novel after another - until now. "The Third Angel" is good, but not great, and great is what we've been expecting and getting from Hoffman with "Probable Future," "Blackbird House," and "Ice Queen."

What sets Hoffman apart is her use of magic realism, so utterly convincing and captivating. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me in "The Third Angel." I felt she was rushing for a deadline. Ultimately, this is a hiccup in her oeuvre, and I can't wait to read her next novel.

Sometimes I think the whole concept of language and storytelling have spent centuries waiting around for Ann Hoffman to come along and use them. She is certainly one of the best wordsmiths the English Language has ever produced, one of the best storytellers too and she's at the top of her game with this one.

The Third Angel is three novellas which work backward in time, telling the story about interconnecting characters and a ghost. What happened back in 1952 affects what happens in 1966 and 1999. We get the last story first and the first story last.

The story opens with American Attorney Maddie Heller arriving at the Lion Park Hotel in London. Her sister Allie is getting married and her husband to be Paul who is ill. However, that doesn't stop Maddie from sleeping with him. Maddie is the bad sister. Children's author Allie is the good. The ghost in room 707, well he's just the ghost. In Maddie's defense, if there can be any defense for a woman who sleeps with her sister's intended, is that she's in love him. It's tragic for Maddie, what she has done can ruin her sister's life. Will it?

Maddie's story finished we move back to 1966 and Ms. Hoffman captures the time beautifully. She captures the story of Paul's mother Frieda beautifully as well. Frieda is an over educated maid in the Lion Park Hotel and she's besotted with a wannabe Jim Morrison type and she has his child and names him Paul, who will eventually grow up, get sick and marry Maddie's sister Alley. Again Ms. Hoffman has given us characters so true that they'll be in your head long after your reading of this book is done. She's done the ghost justice too.

Frieda's story finished, we move still backward in time to 1952 and join twelve-year-old Lucy, who will later in life give birth to Allie and Maddie. Her father and stepmother bring her across the ocean to London as they are going to the wedding of stepmom's sister Bryn who still has a thing for her ex-husband Michael, who is not the guy she's supposed to be marrying. Lucy carries messages back and forth between Michael and Bryn and it's because, whoops, better stop right here, but needless to say the ghost might not be a ghost yet. You'll have to get this book to find out more, but it'll be a good investment.

Ann Hoffman's characters, her ghost, her three angels, the rabbet who lives in the hotel and the city of London all invite you to crack open the pages of the best book you'll read this year.

Ken Douglas, author of Tangerine Dream, Scorpion & Running Scared.

This was a beautiful, moving book. I really wanted to savor it but unfortunately finished it in two days anyway because I couldn't put it down. The writing manages to convey the mood and each character's emotion without being overly wordy.

I've been aware of Alice Hoffman for many years but for some reason never picked up one of her books until now. I have a hard time finding authors I really like and I'm excited to start reading her prior novels.

I just made my way, joyfully, through this book. Her best since "Blue Diary". This is Hoffman at the top of her game, and I loved it, start to finish.

Alice Hoffman is one of the finest writers of these times.Her books have received many awards from magazines and newspapers.

Now, in "The Third Angel" Hoffman writes a very original story that covers the lives of three women who love the wrong men. Maddy Heller is attracdted to her sister's fiance.

Bryn Evans and Frieda Lewis are the other characters in this book who also are involved with the wrong men.

Lucy Green who is at the heart of this story, blames herself for an accident that she witnessed when she was twelve years old. Now she has spent four decades looking for the "third angel" on earth who will renew her faith.

This is a brilliantly written story about unique love.

I enjoyed it very much.

Even though I've thoroughly enjoyed some of her recent works, I feel this is Ms. Hoffman's best book in years! The story is rich, multi-layered, and deeply engaging. Beautiful writing to get lost in telling a tale that you hate to see come to an end. If you've never read Hoffman, do yourself a favor - she's simply the best.

Alice Hoffman has been my favorite writer for years. But I was totally disappointed with her new novel. I must be getting old. I didn't like the characters, the language, the story. I read 50 pages and then skimmed through the remainder. I then wanted to look at the reviews on Amazon and was shocked to see all the starred reviews and that I was the lone dissenter. Oh well, I will still look forward to her next book.

Alice Hoffman's latest novel THE THIRD ANGEL consists of three stories connected by the same characters and places over different periods of time, beginning with the most recent events and going backward: I, "The Heron's Wife," 1999; II, "Lion Park," 1966 and III, "The Rules of Love," 1952. The stories also hang together because the same themes run through each of them. Who is better to say what Ms. Hoffman writes about than the author, herself? In a recent reading, she told the audience that her books are always about love and loss. In "The Heron's Wife," Maddy falls in love-- she thinks-- with her sister's fiance Paul, when she goes to London for her sister Allie's wedding. In "Lion Park"-- the name of a hotel in London where much of the action takes place over the years-- Frieda, who later becomes the mother of Paul, falls for a rock star addicted to hard drugs although he is in love with someone else. Finally in "The Rules of Love" the twelve-year-old Lucy (later the mother of Maddy and Allie) gets caught up in a tragedy where another character is in love with a women who marries someone else.

Ms. Hoffman's characters in this novel fall in love with the wrong person, or with the right person but too early or too late. Then they may settle-- in the case of Frieda-- for a "nice man." Although love may be simple, it is not rational. The author also writes about the love of parents for children. As one character puts it: "You won't believe how much you'll love your child." Even though Hoffman's complex characters are flawed, seldom turning out the way their parents had hoped they would (sound familiar?), and may do bad acts, betraying those they love, they also often have redeeming qualities as well. They mend their broken lives and sometimes become that third angel, described so beautifully by Frieda's doctor father whom she remembers as a "very serious, lovely, practical man." In addition to the Angel of Life or the Angel of Death, one of whom would ride with him in the back of his car when he made house calls, there was the mysterious Third Angel: "'You can't even tell if he's an angel or not. You think you're doing him a kindness, you think you're the one taking care of him, while all the while, he's the one who's saving your life.'" He walks among us.

Ms. Hoffman is so good at creating events that remind us that, yes, this is just the way it is or the way a similar event in our own lives affected us: for example, the sudden shock and suffocating loneliness of learning that a person-- perhaps an old friend we have lost contact with or someone we once cared about deeply-- whom we thought was alive has been dead for months or even years. She writes as eloquently and movingly about death as anyone I can think of-- passages from Thomas Wolfe's LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL and Alan Gurganus' PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS come to mind; and her writing is filled with a magic-- i.e., blue herons and white rabbits-- worthy of the best of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Although Ms. Hoffman's prose has not one unnecessary word or phrase, it is beautifully descriptive and often poetic. Consider this: "It was that silver-colored time between night and morning, when the sky is still dark, but lights are flicking on all over the city. It was quiet, the way it is in winter when snow first begins to fall."

If you are not careful, you will be undone by this novel for it gives a poignant picture of what it means to be human.

I've been reading Alice Hoffman's novels since " Turtle Moon " first came out. "The Third Angel" is now one of my favortites, right up there with "Practical Magic".

Alice Hoffman's latest novel THE THIRD ANGEL consists of three stories connected by the same characters and places over different periods of time, beginning with the most recent events and going backward: I, "The Heron's Wife," 1999; II, "Lion Park," 1966 and III, "The Rules of Love," 1952. The stories also hang together because the same themes run through each of them. Who is better to say what Mr. Hoffman writes about than the author, herself? In a recent reading, she told the audience that her books are always about love and loss. In "The Heron's Wife," Maddy falls in love-- she thinks-- with her sister's fiance Paul, when she goes to London for her sister Allie's wedding. In "Lion Park"-- the name of a hotel in London where much of the action takes place over the years-- Frieda, who later becomes the mother of Paul, falls for a rock star addicted to hard drugs although he is in love with someone else. Finally in "The Rules of Love" the twelve-year-old Lucy (later the mother of Maddy and Allie) gets caught up in a tragedy where another character is in love with a women who marries someone else.

Ms. Hoffman's characters in this novel fall in love with the wrong person, or with the right person but too early or too late. Then they may settle-- in the case of Frieda-- for a "nice man." Although love may be simple, it is not rational. The author also writes about the love of parents for children: "You won't believe how much you'll love your child." Even though Hoffman's complex characters are flawed, seldom turning out the way their parents had hoped they would (sound familiar?), and may do bad acts, betraying those they love, they also often have redeeming qualities as well. They mend their broken lives and sometimes become that third angel, described so beautifully by Frieda's doctor father whom she remembers as a "very serious, lovely, practical man." In addition to the Angel of Life or the Angel of Death, one of whom would ride with him in the back of his car when he made house calls, there was the mysterious Third Angel: "'You can't even tell if he's an angel or not. You think you're doing him a kindness, you think you're the one taking care of him, while all the while, he's the one who's saving your life.'" He walks among us.

Ms. Hoffman is so good at creating events that remind us that, yes, this is just the way it is or the way a similar event in our own lives affected us: for example, the sudden shock and suffocating loneliness of learning that a person-- perhaps an old friend we have lost contact with or someone we once cared about deeply-- whom we thought was alive has been dead for months or even years. She writes as eloquently and movingly about death as anyone I can think of-- passages from Thomas Wolfe's LOOK HOMEWARD ANGEL and Alan Gurganus' PLAYS WELL WITH OTHERS come to mind; and her writing is filled with a magic-- i.e., blue herons and white rabbits-- worthy of the best of Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Although Ms. Hoffman's prose has not one unnecessary word or phrase, it is beautifully descriptive and often poetic. Consider this: "It was that silver-colored time between night and morning, when the sky is still dark, but lights are flicking on all over the city. It was quiet, the way it is in winter when snow first begins to fall."

If you are not careful, you will be undone by this novel.

Having recently read Here on Earth and Seventh Heaven, I was anxious to get my hands on a copy of Alice Hoffman's latest offering. In this impressive heart stirring novel Hoffman delves into the lives of three women with intersecting lives. The time frame is the last half of the 20th century, but the story does not follow in chronological order. It starts in 1999 London where Maddy Heller, big time NYC attorney has just touched down after having an affair with her sister Allie's fiancé, Paul. She has a lot to think about, not just the upcoming marriage but the fact that Paul is dying. The story then swings back to 1960s London where we meet Paul's future mother Frieda Lewis. Frieda is in love with a singer song writer on the edge of stardom, but she knows in her heart it won't work and there is a black cloud over her lover. But now Hoffman dig deeper into the past and takes back to meet Maddy and Allie's mother at 12 years old when she inadvertently activates events beyond her imagining. The surprise is how all these events tie together, and how events form people and have effects years into the future. Hoffman's talent for creating complex characters is on display here. Speaking of complex characters, I recommend "Misfits Country" for more intense literary fiction.

I'll preface this review by saying that I have mixed feelings about Hoffman. Some of her books I've absolutely adored, but others (like Practical Magic) I've thought were way over the top, with the magical realism seeming awfully contrived. But with this book, she has truly succeeded in balancing the mysticism with the character development and storytelling, and this has become one of my all-time favorites of hers.

The story unfolds backward in time. Unfortunately, that means it begins in 1999, when Maddy Heller arrives in London for her sister's wedding. Maddy is insecure and unsympathetic, and almost desperate to behave badly, and we're forced to spend rather too much time with her before moving on. But persevere! Once Hoffman jumps back to 1966, the stories of Frieda and Lucy are ten times more compelling, and their voices so much more sympathetic. Hoffman is an amazing storyteller, and you never know exactly where her characters are headed, which is part of what makes the journey so compelling.

In a similar vein, I'd also like to recommend a beautifully complex, incredibly written novel I read recently, Pieces of My Sister's Life. The novel is completely magical, and touches similar themes of forgiveness and obligation. I'd also like to recommend another Hoffman novel, Blue Diary, which is perhaps my favorite of hers.

Enjoy!

This book can break your heart. Alice Hoffman writes with delicacy and compassion about life and death, about loving someone with such desperation that nothing else matters. She writes about how people must forgive themselves.

The three chapters in this book are set in different times, and have different characters. The stories, all centered in London, move back in time from 1999 to 1966 to 1952. All three are interconnected, and it's not until the end that the whole picture becomes clear. All involve hopeless, betrayed love.

In the first, "The Heron's Wife," a young woman has an affair with her sister's fiancé. "Lion Park" is about a young woman seduced by a drug-addicted rock musician. "The Rules of Love" involves a precocious 12-year-old girl who innocently causes the violent death to two people in a lover's triangle.

Many themes weave throughout the book -- love, weddings, abandonment, birds, rabbits, the power of the written word... and in the end, atonement.

An extraordinary doctor explains about the Third Angel. There is the Angel of Life and the Angel of Death, neither of which can be controlled. The Third Angel, however, walks among us. He's the angel that makes mistakes. Like all of us, he sometimes needs rescuing.