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A Bend in the Road
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(2 Votes)From Publishers Weekly
Sweet, accessible, uplifting and predictable, the latest love story from Sparks (The Notebook) leaves the reader with just one burning question: Why is this consummate beach book being published in the fall? The nearly thwarted but eventually triumphant romance of deputy sheriff Miles Ryan and second-grade teacher Sarah Andrews goes down as easily as marshmallow fluff and offers about as much real nourishment. Miles's high school sweetheart, Missy, was killed in an unsolved hit and run accident, leaving him to raise their son, Jonah, in New Bern, N.C. Sarah's politically ambitious husband, Michael, dumped her when her ovaries proved inactive, and she fled to New Bern to teach, and love, other people's kids. Miles and Sarah meet at a parent-teacher conference, and the sparks fly. But there's a fly in the ointment as well; an italicized voice threaded among the happy chapters alerts us that Missy's death was caused by someone whose identity, if revealed, could destroy Miles and Sarah's newfound joy. In Sparks's heaven, clouds exist to make silver linings look the brighter. As tough truth shadows their landscape, Miles and Sarah find depths within themselves, and their rekindled light illumines all. New Bern becomes a city of the reborn. Charlie Curtis, Miles's stickler boss, learns to bend; Missy's aimless killer morphs into a healer; and Jonah once again knows a mother's love. The opposite of edgy, with simple sentences and soft-pedaled sex, Sparks's plain vanilla morality will doubtless sell like ice cream on a steamy day. (Sept.)Forecast: Major television and print advertising and an 18-city author tour will broadcast Sparks's latest from the rooftops; expect instant bestsellerdom.
Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
A man loses his wife, lives in a haze, and then finds healing new love until the secrets start popping. nonfiction
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
13/12/2001
That is what Miles Ryan is up against after the death of his wife Missy by an unknown hit and run driver. Sparks has introduced the driver to us via a series of “italicized” chapters sporadically interspersed within the story as a whole. I enjoyed this aspect of the book and was always pleased to see another chapter by this individual who would reveal a little bit more about the person who perpetrated the crime.
Jonah Ryan is a little boy who has lost his mom and been allowed to slip back in his school work out of pity for his loss. Sarah, his new teacher makes friends with the Ryan family when she offers to work with him after school. Sarah and Miles make fast and easy friends, and Miles starts to have feelings that he thought would be long dead after losing Missy. It is when life is back on track for the first time in two years that his world is blown apart, and the madness begins.
This is an excellent book and I would rate it 4.5. Sparks’ books are warm and touching but the edge of madness is done well in this particular book. Something to watch for is the up and coming movie “A Walk to Remember” based on another Nicholas Sparks novel that just grabbed me by the heart. (...)
15/10/2001
If you love a love story, cry over broken hearts, and savor the coziness of small-town life, this book is tailor-made for you. I absolutely loved the story of Miles Ryan and his young son Jonah. Their wife and mother, Missy, is struck down and-run driver, sending waves of loneliness through the lives of Miles and Jonah. Miles, as deputy sheriff of his small North Carolina town, feels doubly saddened found happiness with Miles and Jonah.
Written with passion and simplicity, this wonderful book also has tones of Mary Higgins Clark, as readers are able to spend several chapters in the mind of the as-yet-unknown driver of the car who killed Missy. The mystery of unveiling the hit-and-run driver coupled with the romance of Sarah and Miles makes this a comforting, curl-up-and-read pleasure for fall.
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