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On Mystic Lake: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) Review

I hadn't read On Mystic Lake in 11 years, so felt the long overdue necessity to re-read a book that I felt was so good, so important to me, all those years ago.

And it still remains. On Mystic Lake was the first book I'd read of Kristin Hannah's, the first of many. She has a gift for characters that touch you, stories that take you on a journey, yet seem believable.

I remember during the first read, the sympathy I felt for Izzy and Nick, how I loved them and embraced them. That much didn't change, years later. I had somewhat forgotten, however, until my most recent read, the up and down emotions I felt for Annie, as she joins their lives, and works to make a decision between who she's been and who she will be going forward. A decision, I think, we all have to make at some point in time, in some capacity, in our own lives.

Hannah writes in a way that is simple, yet touching. In my first read, I had written down quotes that I loved, and it was those same quotes, 11 years later, that still felt so moving to me. Since my first read of On Mystic Lake, I've read a lot more of her books. Between Sisters was a great one, but On Mystic Lake still remains a favorite.

If you want a tale of love, loss, the one that got away, and the hope to rebuild and start anew, this book is for you. Hannah is a special writer, and over the years I've enjoyed many of her books. That all started with On Mystic Lake.

On Mystic Lake: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) Feature

ISBN13: 9780345471178
Condition: New
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On Mystic Lake: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) Overview

Kristin Hannah makes her hardcover debut with this poignant, tender, and true story of love, loss, passion, and the fragile threads that bind families together.

Annie Colwater's only child has just left home for school abroad. On that same day, her husband of twenty years confesses that he's in love with a younger woman. Alone in the house that is no longer a home, Annie comes to the painful realization that for years she has been slowly disappearing. Lonely and afraid, she retreats to Mystic, the small Washington town where she grew up, hoping that there she can reclaim the woman she once was--the woman she is now desperate to become again.

In Mystic, she is reunited with her first love, Nick Delacroix, a recent widower unable to cope with his grieving, too-silent six-year-old daughter, Izzie. Together, the three of them begin to heal, and, at last, Annie learns that she can love without losing herself. But just when she has found a second chance at happiness, her life is turned upside down again, and Annie must make a choice no woman should have to make. . . .

On Mystic Lake is the story of one seemingly ordinary woman, but the novel speaks to all of us, to anyone who has ever had to choose between what is . . . and what could be.

From the Hardcover edition.

On Mystic Lake: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) Specifications

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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Customer Reviews

Wanted more... - Amber -
I LOVE Kristin Hannah...read a handfull of her books and cried, and cried and cried...but this one...I wanted more.
It was a beautiful story, but come the end...it just ended...I know we assume she goes to Nick...but I wanted all the juicy details in writing! Hey...maybe she went back to her Dad...we don't know.
My favorite book so far was the Winter Garden...you need a few boxes of tissues after that book...oh my.
Kristin Hannah really knows how to hit you straight in the heart!

Poor character development, bad dialogue - cardsgal - Nashville, TN
I bought this book based on the glowing reviews here. Big mistake. This book has an interesting premise and plotline. However, it is near fatally flawed by stilted, unrealistic dialogue (the male protagonist, especially, spouts dialogue that sounds like a teenage female's fantasy of what a man should say -- not even the most sensitive Alan Alda type would say this stuff) and poorly developed characters. Maybe Hanna has improved through the years (I don't know and won't find out, as I won't buy another of her books), but this book is NOT good.

Hm...... - Lee C. - Morristown, TENNESSEE United States
Okay, I liked the story. She's created her world and it crashes. I loved that she went home and that she became compassionately involved with a former friend's struggling child. I especially loved the relationship that began to bloom and the house that came to order under her gentle touch. I loved her dad...I loved Mystic Lake. What I did not love, however, was that her shallow, self-centered ex-husband soared back into the story with a twist that sort of gagged me. It was a great story but the ending was not what I wanted. Well-written by an intelligent author...it just didn't get me there.

Predictable and Unoriginal Dialog - E. Grouell -
I made it through this entire book but, was truly un-wowed. The dialog was so predictable and incredibly boring. The characters were really not well developed. We got a perspective from each point of view yet, the whole story seemed incredibly flat. The only character I enjoyed was the six year old and she was only really 15% of the story. I found this to be mindless read and not at all like the other reviewers comments.

*** Product Information and Prices Stored: Aug 25, 2010 17:14:07

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Wednesday, August 25, 2010