The Third Angel

Starred review from December 17, 2007
In this elegant and stunning novel, veteran heartstring-puller Hoffman (Here on Earth
; Seventh Heaven
) examines the lives of three women at different crossroads in their lives, tying their London-centered stories together in devastating retrospect. High powered New York attorney Maddy Heller arrives in 1999 London having had an affair with Paul, her sister Allie’s fiancé,; she must now cope with the impending marriage, and with Paul’s terminal illness—which echoes the girls’ mother’s cancer during their childhood. Hoffman then shifts to heady 1966 London and to Frieda Lewis, Paul’s future mother, who falls for a doomed up-and-coming songwriter knowing he will break her heart. The narrative then shifts further back, to 1952 and to Maddy and Allie’s future mother, Lucy Green. A bookish 12-year-old wise beyond her years, Lucy sails with her father and stepmother from New York to London for a wedding. There, she becomes an innocent catalyst to a devastating event involving a love triangle. Hoffman interweaves the three stories, gazing unerringly into forces that cause some people to self-destruct (“There was no such thing as too much for a girl who thought she was second best”) and others to find inner strength to last a lifetime.

February 15, 2008
Once again, novelist Hoffman ("Skylight Confessions") weaves a mesmerizing tale of the human condition, this time examining the nature of love. Set in London, her new novel tells the story of three different women, tangentially connected. The book's first part focuses on self-absorbed Maddy Heller, who has always coveted her sister Allie's life. That obsession continues when she has an affair with Allie's terminally ill fianc, Paul. The second part travels back in time to follow Paul's mother, Frieda, as she becomes involved with an engaged and tragic rock star. The final section concerns Maddy and Allie's mother, Lucy Green, who was in the middle of a fraught love triangle many years before having the girls. Each of these women has lost her faith and each searches for the one angel on earth who can renew it for her. A solid story with a haunting plot line and interesting characters, this latest novel is sure to please Hoffman's fans and win over new readers. Recommended for all public library fiction collections.Nanci Milone Hill, Nevins Memorial Lib., Metheun, MA

Copyright 2008 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from December 1, 2007
Over the course of writing more than two dozen works of fiction, Hoffman has created her very own form, the heartbreak fairy tale. Her latest and one of her best is an exceptionally well-structured, beguiling, and affectingtriptych of catastrophic love stories, eachlaced with patterns of three andanchored to a haunted London hotel.In the first and most contemporary tale, Maddy stays at the hotel while visiting her soon-to-be-married sister and falling for her sister's fianc. Set in 1966, the middle tale features rebellious young Frieda, a college dropout working as a maid at the hotel who tries to rescue a junkie rock musician. Finally, thetragicstory ofthe hotel's ghost revolves around precocious young Lucy, whose inadvertent role in afatal love triangle wounds her very soul. A kind doctor repeats thenovel's mantra when he says that we are accompanied bythe Angel of Life, the Angel of Death, and the Third Angel, ?the one who walks among us, ? and, like us, needs compassion. Not only is Hoffman spellbinding in this incandescent fusion of dark romance and penetrating psychic insight, she also opensdiverse and compellingworlds, dramatizes the shocks and revelations that forge the self, and reveals thenecessity andtoll of empathy and kindness. Hoffman has transcended her own genre.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2007, American Library Association.)