Angel falls

Kristin Hannah

Book - 2000

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FICTION/Hannah, Kristin
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1st Floor FICTION/Hannah, Kristin Due Apr 19, 2024
Subjects
Published
New York : Crown Publishers 2000.
Language
English
Main Author
Kristin Hannah (-)
Edition
1st ed
Physical Description
274 p.
ISBN
9780345484277
9780609605929
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Romance author Hannah's second hardcover novel is a heart-wrenching love story set in the Pacific Northwest. Last Bend is a close-knit small town tucked away among towering evergreens in Washington's Cascade Mountains. Lifelong resident Liam Campbell is a doctor, a compassionate, reliable man, married and fervently in love with his kind and beautiful wife, Mikaela. They have a comfortable life with their children--9-year-old Bret and 16-year-old Jacey, Mikaela's daughter from a previous marriage, but everything suddenly changes one morning when Mikaela is thrown from a horse in a freak accident. Her violent fall results in a severe head injury, and she is plunged into a deep coma. Liam and the family refuse to surrender her to the heartbreaking medical prognosis and hope valiantly that their love and devotion can bring her back to consciousness. Then one night, Liam discovers some long-hidden photos that reveal the improbable identity of Mikaela's first husband, which she has kept secret from him. It's Julian True, international celebrity heartthrob and millionaire movie-star, and Liam senses that Julian is also the true love of Mikaela's life. He must now decide if he loves his wife enough to risk losing her by finding out if Julian's presence can awaken her from her coma. Hannah ably uses her insights into small-town and family life as well as celebrity worship to explore the nature of love and commitment in a story sure to please fans of dramatic, romantic love stories. --Catherine Sias

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Set amid the splendor of Washington State's North Cascade mountain range, Hannah's latest (after On Mystic Lake) borrows elements from soap opera, the silver screen and fairy tales to make a simple statement about the complications of love. Dr. Liam Campbell is devastated when his beloved wife, Mikaela, mother of two, suffers a horse-jumping injury that leaves her in a coma. His confusion escalates when he learns the identity of Mikaela's first husband: world-famous movie star Julian True. The biggest shock: True's is the only name she responds to. Liam senses that his Sleeping Beauty needs love to wake her up, but whose? Given the depth of his feelings for her, will he be brave enough to summon True for help, and so risk losing Mikaela forever in order to save her life? Scenes reminiscent of Kramer vs. Kramer occur where Liam tries to be mom to their nine-year-old son; the suds world takes over when Mikaela finally wakes, but with retrograde amnesia, thinking she's still married to True and with no memory of Liam; and It's a Wonderful Life brings the curtain down. In keeping with the popular convention of giving voice to spirituality, the novel employs religious overtones, which will please some readers while leaving others feeling molested by an angel. Mikaela and Liam are sweet characters, even relentlessly good ones, so many will find them likable even as they float smoothly toward an easy conclusion. 125,000 first printing. (Apr.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review

Hannah's sequel to On Mystic Lake (1999) is yet another tear-jerker set in northwest Washington State. Perfect mother Mikaela ('Mike') Campbell takes a hard fall off a horse, hits her head, and sinks into a coma. In order to help bring her out of it, perfect husband-doctor Liam sits at her bedside and begins to talk to her about their life together. He brings her favorite music, scented potpourri, and, to place across her inert body, sweaters that may smell like home. He also tries to keep life as normal as possible for their two kids: Bret, nine years old, and Jacey, Mike's teenaged daughter by her previous husband. Going through Mike's closet to find a prom dress for Jacey, Liam stumbles on souvenirs of her first marriage and a picture of her ex'not just any old, anonymous first husband, but Julian True, a gorgeous superstar actor, the hero of women's fantasies all over America. Liam has always known that he got Mikaela on the rebound; she was honest about the fact that he was not the love of her life. But she is the love of his life, and when she doesn't respond to the sound of his voice, he contacts Julian in hopes that the actor can save Mikaela. Julian travels up to Last Bend, a cutesy town founded by Liam's larger-than-life father and filled with homey shops like the Emperor's New Clothes store and Zeke's Feed and Seed. When Mike finally comes out of unconsciousness and into her family's emotional upheaval, she apologizes to Liam and bids goodbye to Julian. Yes, she's discovered that it's that gentle guy who stays with you through years of cramps and decorating the Christmas tree who defines what love really is. The heartfelt soap appears to be Hannah's chosen romance niche, and she mines it skillfully. (First printing of 125,000)

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened . . . T. S. Eliot, from "Burnt Norton" Chapter One In northwest Washington state, jagged granite mountains reach for the misty sky, their peaks inaccessible even in this age of helicopters and high-tech adventurers. The trees in this part of the country grow thick as an old man's beard and block out all but the hardiest rays of the sun. Only in the brightest months of summer can hikers find their way back to the cars they park along the sides of the road. Deep in the black-and-green darkness of this old-growth forest lies the tiny town of Last Bend. To visitors -- there are no strangers here -- it is the kind of place they'd thought to encounter only in the winding tracks of their own imaginations. When they first walk down the streets, folks swear they hear a noise that can only be described as laughter. Then come the memories, some real, some manufactured images from old movies and Life magazine. They recall how their grandmother's lemonade tasted . . . or the creaky sound of a porch swing gliding quietly back and forth, back and forth, on the tail end of a muggy summer's night. Last Bend was founded fifty years ago, when a big, broad-shouldered Scotsman named Ian Campbell gave up his crumbling ancestral home in Edinburgh and set off in search of adventure. Somewhere along the way -- family legend attributed it to Wyoming -- he took up rock climbing, and spent the next ten years wandering from mountain to mountain, looking for two things: the ultimate climb and a place to leave his mark. He found what he was looking for in Washington's North Cascade mountain range. In this place where Sasquatches were more than a campfire myth and glaciers flowed year round in ice-blue rivers, he staked his claim. He drove as close to the mighty Mt. Baker as he could and bought a hundred acres of prime pastureland, then he bought a corner lot on a gravel road that would someday mature into the Mount Baker Highway. He built his town along the pebbly, pristine shores of Angel Lake and christened it Last Bend, because he thought the only home worth having was worth searching for, and he'd found his at the last turn in the road. It took him some time to find a woman willing to live in a moss-chinked log cabin without electricity or running water, but find her he did -- a fiery Irish lass with dreams that matched his own. Together they fashioned the town of their combined imagination; she planted Japanese maple saplings along Main Street and started a dozen traditions-Glacier Days, the Sasquatch race, and the Halloween haunted house on the corner of Cascade and Main. In the same year the Righteous Brothers lost that lovin' feeling, Ian and Fiona began to build their dream home, a huge, semicircular log house that sat on a small rise in the middle of their property. On some days, when the sky was steel blue, the glaciered mountain peaks seemed close enough to touch. Towering Douglas firs and cedars rimmed the carefully mowed lawn, protected the orchard from winter's frozen breath. Bordering the west end of their land was Angel Creek, a torrent in the still gloaming of the year, a quiet gurgling creek when the sun shone high and hot in the summer months. In the wintertime, they could step onto their front porch and hear the echo of Angel Falls, only a few miles away. Now the third generation of Campbells lived in that house. Tucked tightly under the sharply sloped roofline was a young boy's bedroom. It was not unlike other little boys' rooms in this media-driven age -- Corvette bed, Batman posters tacked to the uneven log walls, Goosebumps books strewn across the shag-carpeted floor, piles of plastic dinosaurs and fake snakes and Star Wars action figures. Nine-year-old Bret Campbell lay quietly in his bed, watching the digital clock by his bed flick red numbers into the darkness. Five-thirty. Five thirty-one. Five thirty-two. Halloween morning. He had wanted to set the alarm for this special Saturday morning, but he didn't know how, and if he'd asked for help, his surprise would have been ruined. And so he snuggled under the Mr. Freeze comforter, waiting. At precisely 5:45, he flipped the covers back and climbed out of bed. Careful not to make any noise, he pulled the grocery sack from underneath his bed and unpacked it. There was no light on, but he didn't need one. He'd stared at these clothes every night for a week. His Halloween costume. A sparkly pair of hand-me-down cowboy boots that they'd picked up at the Emperor's New Clothes used-clothing shop, a fake leather vest from the Dollar-Saver thrift shop, a pair of felt chaps his mom had made, a plaid flannel shirt and brand-new Wrangler jeans from Zeke's Feed and Seed, and best of all, a shiny sheriff's star and gun belt from the toy store. His daddy had even made him a kid-sized lariat that could be strapped to the gun belt. He stripped off his pj's and slipped into the outfit, leaving behind the gun belt, guns, chaps, lariat, and ten-gallon hat. Those he wouldn't need now. He felt like a real cowboy. He grabbed the index card with the instructions on it -- just in case -- and went to his bedroom door, peeking out into the shadowy hallway. He peered down at the other two bedrooms. Both doors were closed and no light slid out from underneath. Of course his sixteen-year-old sister, Jacey, was asleep. It was Saturday, and on the day after a high-school football game, she always slept until noon. Dad had been at the hospital all night with a patient, so he'd be tired this morning, too. Only Mom would be getting up early-and she'd be in the barn, ready to go, at six o'clock. From the Hardcover edition. Excerpted from Angel Falls by Kristin Hannah All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.