Paperback romance writer Hannah (Home Again, LJ 11/15/96) breaks into the hardcover mainstream with this novel. Annie finds herself abandoned after 20 years by a faithless husband and a college-bound daughter. Having no identity of her own after spending her life nurturing them, she returns to her native Mystic, a logging town in Washington State. There she finds her old high school beau in crisis after his wife's suicide. His depression prevents him from caring for his small daughter, Izzy, who is also emotionally troubled. Annie is able to find meaning again through nurturing others, but this time she learns to rely on her own inner strength. The grieving father battles alcoholism while Annie restores Izzy's mental health, and, as the characters heal, the old romance is rekindled. Fans of Anne Rivers Siddons will devour this. With heavy publicity, including book club selection, a magazine serial, and optioned film rights, expect demand. Highly recommended for all collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 11/1/98.]‘Carol J. Bissett, Dittlinger Memorial Lib., New Braunfels, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

As Annie Colwater approaches 40, she thinks her life is perfect. She has a terrific daughter about to go away to college and is married to a very successful Southern California attorney. Her dream is that when their daughter leaves the nest, she and her husband will rediscover each other and rekindle their love, but Blake has other ideas. Right after they see their daughter's plane off, he informs Annie that he wants a divorce because he's found someone else. Annie's life is shattered. If she's no longer needed as a wife and a mother, then who is she? Devastated, she decides to go back to Mystic, her hometown nestled in the rain forest of Washington State. While staying with her father, she finds out that her old friend Nick is a widower and needs help taking care of his six-year-old daughter. This fills the void in Annie's life, and she soon becomes very attached to Nick and Izzy and reconciled to her impending divorce. But after Blake shows up and tells her that he wants her back, Annie must decide whether she should return to her old life or stay with Nick, whom she has grown to love. Fortunately, Annie has help from her daughter, who is wise beyond her years. Romance author Hannah, who has made a very successful transition from paperback to hardcover, delivers an extremely satisfying, insightful, and emotional tale. Fans of La Vyrle Spencer will certainly enjoy this moving book. --Patty Engelmann

In her first hardcover after a distinguished career in paperback romance (Home Again), Hannah shows what it takes for an author to make that defining leap. Never one to gush, she is more than ever disciplined in her writing, and the result is a clean, deep thrust into the reader's heart. Annie Colwater knows she's in for a spell of loneliness when her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, leaves Southern California for a summer in London, but the teary airport farewell is just the beginning of a chaotic time. Blake, Annie's husband, tells her that he wants a divorce so he can start a new life with his sweetheart, a young partner in his law firm. Blake's a cad‘a habitual philanderer, and the sort of father who forgets birthdays‘but we don't totally blame him for bailing out. Annie is Natalie's doting mother, Blake's dutiful wife and otherwise barely there. In search of the self she must find to survive, Annie goes back to Mystic, Wash., and the home of her father, gruffly loving Hank Borne, who did his best to raise her after the early death of her mother. Maternal loss is a terrain Hannah seems to know to a harrowing fare-thee-well. Annie's redemption begins with her profound kindness to six-year-old Isabella Delacroix, whose mother, Kathy‘once Annie's best friend‘has recently died. A romance with alcoholic cop Nick, Isabella's father, unfolds tenderly and with suspense, for all its inevitability. When Annie discovers she is pregnant with Blake's child, and then gives birth prematurely to a tiny girl who may not survive, the phrase "page-turner" is redefined. In Hannah's world, nothing can be taken for granted and triumph must be earned, with hard work, truthful reckoning and tears. 100,000 first printing; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections; film rights optioned by Hearst Entertainment; rights sold in the U.K., Germany, France, Sweden and China. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Hannah, after eight paperbacks, abandons her successful time-travelers for a hardcover life of kitchen-sink romance. 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. 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. 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. 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. Annie spruces up Nick's home on Mystic Lake and sends ``Izzy-bear'' back into speech mode. And, after Nick begins attending AA meetings, she and he become lovers. 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. The baby arrives prematurely, and mean-spirited Blake doesn't even stick around to support his wife. 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. 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. (First printing of 100,000; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild/Doubleday book club selections)