NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The author of the cherished bestseller
On Mystic Lake returns with a poignant, funny, luminous novel about a
mother and daughter--the complex ties that bind them, the past that
separates them, and the healing that comes with forgiveness.
"[Kristin] Hannah is superb at delving into the characters' psyches
and delineating nuances of feeling."--Washington Post Book World
Years ago, Nora Bridge walked out on her marriage and left her daughters
behind. She has since become a famous radio talk-show host and newspaper
columnist beloved for her moral advice. Her youngest daughter, Ruby, is
a struggling comedienne who uses her famous mother as fuel for her
bitter, cynical humor. When the tabloids unearth a scandalous secret
from Nora's past, their estrangement suddenly becomes dramatic: Nora is
injured in an accident and a glossy magazine offers Ruby a fortune to
write a tell-all about her mother. Under false pretenses, Ruby returns
home to take care of the woman she hasn't spoken to for almost a decade.
Nora insists they retreat to Summer Island in the San Juans, to the
lovely old house on the water where Ruby grew up, a place filled with
childhood memories of love and joy and belonging. There Ruby is also
reunited with her first love and his brother. Once, the three of them
had been best friends, inseparable. Until the summer that Nora had left
and everyone's hearts had been broken. . . .
What began as an expose evolves, as Ruby writes, into an exploration of
her family's past. Nora is not the woman Ruby has hated all these years.
Witty, wise, and vulnerable, she is desperate to reconcile with her
daughter. As the magazine deadline draws near and Ruby finishes what has
begun to seem to her an act of brutal betrayal, she is forced to grow up
and at last to look at her mother--and herself--through the eyes of a
woman. And she must, finally, allow herself to love.
Summer Island is a beautiful novel, funny, tender, sad, and ultimately
triumphant.
