"Heart Like Mine" by Amy Hatvany ~ Exceptional Story!

 

 

SUMMARY :

 

From rising star Amy Hatvany, an engrossing new novel about a woman whose life is turned upside down when the man she's engaged to suddenly becomes a full-time father to the children from his previous marriage.

 

Thirty-six-year-old Grace McAllister never longed for children. But when she meets Victor Hansen, a handsome, charismatic divorced restaurateur who is father to Max and Ava, Grace decides that, for the right man, she could learn to be an excellent part-time stepmom. After all, the kids live with their mother, Kelli. How hard could it be?

At thirteen, Ava Hansen is mature beyond her years. Since her parents’ divorce, she has been the one taking care of her emotionally unstable mother and her little brother—she pays the bills, does the laundry, and never complains because she loves her mama more than anyone. And while her father’s new girlfriend is nice enough, Ava still holds out hope that her parents will get back together and that they’ll be a family again.

But only days after Victor and Grace get engaged, Kelli dies suddenly under mysterious circumstances—and soon, Grace and Ava discover there was much more to Kelli’s life than either ever knew.

Narrated by Grace and Ava in the present with flashbacks into Kelli’s troubled past, Heart Like Mine is a poignant and hopeful portrait about womanhood, love, and the challenges of family life.

PARTICULARS OF THIS BOOK :
Published by:  Washington Square Press
Pages:  342 and Readers Club Guide
Genre:  Fiction/Contemporary
Find more here:  Amy Hatvany
Twitter:  @AmyHatvany
Facebook.com/amy.hatvany


SOMETHING ABOUT MS HATVANY :   *Taken from her website

Amy was born in Seattle, WA in 1972, the youngest of three children. She graduated from Western Washington University in 1994 with a degree in Sociology only to discover most sociologists are unemployed. Soon followed a variety of jobs – some of which she loved, like decorating wedding cakes; others which she merely tolerated, like receptionist. In 1998, Amy finally decided to sell her car, quit her job, and take a chance on writing books.

The literary gods took kindly to her aspirations and THE KIND OF LOVE THAT SAVES YOU was published in 2000 by Bantam Doubleday. THE LANGUAGE OF SISTERS was picked up by NAL in 2002. (Both were published under her previous last name, Yurk.)

Amy spends most of her time today with her second and final husband, Stephan. (Seriously, if this one doesn’t work out, she’s done, kaput, no more husbands.) She stays busy with her two children, Scarlett and Miles, and her “bonus child,” Anna. Their blended family also includes two four-legged hairy children, commonly known as Black Lab mutts, Kenda and Dolcé. When Amy’s not with friends or family, she is most likely reading, cooking, or zoning out on certain reality television shows. Top Chef is a current favorite. She eagerly awaits auditions for the cast of “Top Author.” (“Quick Edit” instead of “Quick Fire” Challenge? C’mon, producers! That’s gripping television!) THE DAME'S REVIEW : I really wanted to review "Heart Like Mine" so much and was delighted to be able to get a reader's copy recently.  It was burning a hole in my coffee table all through the Christmas holidays as I was dying for the opportune time to pick it up for a good read.  Well worth the wait, I'm here to report to you! Amy Hatvany is one of the best of the contemporary women writers of today, in my humble opinion.  She knows how to translate women's issues and to bring them to the forefront through believable and endearing characters, both female and male...and those of all ages.  She is a chronicler of our times, I think, in her assessment of what goes on in the contemporary family and in the minds of those mothers who are dealing with them.  She has her hand on the pulse of women in crises and she can tell you about them so that you feel their angst and their push-pull of emotions. My sympathies were torn in this book between the main female characters. Grace, the young woman who really didn't want to be a mother but was thrust into a situation where she had to choose to be one or not to the children of the man she loved.  A tough decision no matter how you look at it!  And, Kelli, the natural mother of the children in question, who died and left them to their father. Both of these women, the children and their father seemed so real in Hatvany's hands!  I thought about them in the hours when I wasn't reading...   If, as so many authors believe, characterization is the thing that makes a book great, "Heart Like Mine" is a great book! It is a gripping novel from the first sentences and it holds on 'til the last.  This is one you won't soon forget, with women you'll be thinking about for days after you put the book down.  A perfect book for book group reading!   5 stars   Deborah/TheBookishDame

 

"I Couldn't Love You More" by Jillian Medoff~Startling Family Drama!

Being a step-mother has its pitfalls on a normal day, but being one when the chips are down is even more difficult.  In "I Couldn't Love You More,"   Eliot Gordon, referred to as the motherly "good one" by her sisters, loves her "steps" like her own children, but she's often stonewalled as so many caring step-mothers are.  In this close monologue of a book, we find out a good deal about mothering, how "Sophie" may have made her choice and why we take the roads in life we do.  This is a passionate book that calls to the mother and the fallible in all of us.  Read it and weep.  I did.  A book to share with your friends, mom, sisters and book group. This one will have you talking to yourself, so you'll need a friend to share it with.  You may have to buy two copies at one time!!

The book is published by:  Grand Central Publishing/Hachette and is written by Jillian Medoff.  You may find it at Barnes & Noble  and at Amazon
There are more than 400 pages to this book. 
You may also want to visit the author's website here:  http://jillianmedoff.com


Summary :

Which child would you save? A decision no parent can even fathom.

Eliot Gordon would do anything for her family. A 38-year-old working mother, she lives an ordinary but fulfilling life in suburban Atlanta with her partner, Grant Delaney, and their three daughters. The two older girls are actually Eliot's stepdaughters, a distinction she is reluctant to make as she valiantly attempts to maintain a safe, happy household . . .

Then Finn Montgomery, Eliot's long-lost first love, appears, triggering a shocking chain of events that culminates in a split-second decision that will haunt her beloved family forever. How Eliot survives-and what she loses in the process-is a story that will resonate with anyone who has ever loved a child. With hilarious honesty, wrenching depth, and a knockout twist, I COULDN'T LOVE YOU MORE illuminates the unbreakable bonds of family and reveals the lengths we'll go to save each other, even as we can't save ourselves.

Please take a moment to view this book trailer ~

Who Is Jillian Medoff ?
Jillian Medoff's bitterly funny, shocking third novel, I Couldn't Love You More, will be available from Grand Central Publishing in 2012. She is the acclaimed author of Hunger Point and Good Girls Gone Bad, both of which received surprisingly great reviews (surprising to her). A huge seller in the US, Hunger Point was the basis for the original Lifetime movie starring Barbara Hershey and Christina Hendricks (Mad Men). Although Jillian is proud of Hunger Point, had anyone asked, she would not have selected such a bright pink (any pink, frankly) for the trade paperback edition. Her books have been translated into many different languages, including French, Spanish, Hebrew, Turkish, Hungarian, Japanese (abridged), Polish, and German (forthcoming).
The eldest daughter of a traveling salesman, Jillian moved 17 times by age 17, ultimately ending up in Atlanta, where her new novel is set. She has a BA from Barnard and an MFA from NYU, and is grateful for having studied with such luminary writers as Mona Simpson, Jonathan Dee, Robert Coover, and Alice Walker. She also attended Master Classes with Toni Morrison, Joyce Carol Oates, and Grace Paley. Although these authors continue to influence her work in powerful and diverse ways, she suspects few of them, if any, remember her. A former fellow at the MacDowell Colony, Blue Mountain Center, VCCA and Fundacion Valparaiso in Spain, Jillian taught at NYU and the University of Georgia, but for only, like, five minutes. She currently lives in New York with her family, and has no plans to move anytime soon.

The Dame's Review :

I have been reading " I Couldn't Love You More" for over a week.  This is very unusual for me.  I just had to savor every word of it. I had to take time to take it all in.  Like a delicious Godiva truffle, I wanted to take my time to chew over what Jillian Medoff was "saying."  This is an extraordinary piece of literature.  It's one that warrants such time-taking.  It's a book I wanted  to cherish and reread, personally.  It may be one of those "nightstand" books because I'd like to keep opening it to passages to think on again and again.  This may give you some idea of the quality of Ms Medoff's writing. 

 I'm not surprised she worked under and studied with some of the finest authors of our times...

it shows up in her work.

I wouldn't be surprised if she didn't do some influencing herself.

The book also meant a great deal to me as a mother and step-mother.  Her ability to translate this very delicate balance of love and responsibility,

 of wanting to be loved and wanting to do what's right is just masterful.

Her telling of that risk of giving it all in mothering for what may be receiving little or no return in the long run is what each of us mothers understands...but it's more so for step-moms.

The risks in this book are just staggering.  And they kept me nailed to the novel mind and spirit.

At last, I thought, someone gets it down on paper.

I write notes about books as I read them, and I read without reading any reviews or summaries of my books if I can help it.  In this case, I kept things to a minimum.  So one of my notes to myself was about Sophie's choice.  Yes, there is that happenstance in this book and it's as horrifying here and as smashing of lives as you can imagine. The dysfunction of families, and the particular dynamics of three significantly different sisters (all playing their Shakespearean roles) is hilarious enough to break the underlying tensions. But, these are not the only things that captured me about this novel.

Primarily, and in addition to what I've already said about the mothering,  I was captivated by its quality of voice.  That's a rare thing to me. To so clearly hear the author's voice was stunning.  It was hypnotic.  It felt as if I were sitting on the sofa of my very best friend and she was telling me her life story.  I felt I was hearing her secrets; her intimate thoughts and feelings that she kept inside but was now sharing with me. 

This book begins in a sort of monologue.  At least, to me there was little dialog.

This sort of thing is ordinarily not appealing to me.  But, as I said, it was simply golden in Jillian Medoff's hands.  To this day I'm in awe of that. 

 As I write this, I wonder if my readers will even comprehend how something can be told without an emphasis on dialog and be so powerful and absorbing to the reader!

It would be redundant to tell you what "I Couldn't Love You More" is "about," so I won't do that.  Only, I will say it is such a beautifully created story of love and sacrifice and redemption.  I thought Jillian Medoff's quote of a Willa Cather saying was significant in the beginning of her book:

" There are only one or two human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before."

This is one of those tellings of one of those lives and times. It may be we've all experienced much of what Ms Medoff describes in her story. It may be this that makes it so relavant and so poignant. And, it's a profound and wonderful telling.

I hope you get your own copy to read and share.  You can never have mine...

5 stars

Deborah/TheBookishDame