Summer's Child

Starred review from May 23, 2005
Resonant and beautifully written, this novel offers a lyrical meditation on healing, a setting as soft and colorful as beach glass and a story that's both suspenseful and tender. Lily Malone and her daughter, Rose, have built a happy life in Cape Hawk, Nova Scotia, despite the ever-present fear that the abusive husband Lily has fled will find them. Old memories surface as Rose becomes friends with a girl whose wary mom is hiding a similar past. When Rose's congenital heart defect forces her to undergo open-heart surgery, Lily also faces her conflicting feelings for marine biologist Liam Neill, whose unflinching support she has been too emotionally scarred to accept. Ultimately, Liam's love and Rose's recovery give her the strength to confront her longing for the past—and the loved one—she has left behind. Rice (Dance with Me
) excels at weaving the familiar staples of popular fiction into storytelling gold; her talent for portraying both children at risk and good men scarred by circumstance also dazzles. Above all, this book—one of Rice's best in recent years—depicts the magical endurance of love with the sensitivity and realism for which she's known. Agent, Andrea Cirillo at the Jane Rotrosen Literary Agency.

June 1, 2005
Retired Connecticut state detective Patrick Murphy has never stopped searching for Mara Jameson even though he believes that her husband killed her and their unborn child nine years ago. The scene shifts to Cape Hawk, Nova Scotia, where Lily showed up nine years ago pregnant and scared. Now everyone wants to help her daughter, Rose, who was born with a heart defect and an abundance of hope and kindness. She and her mother share a bond with Liam McNeill, the one-armed oceanographer who helped deliver Rose and has kept his promise to always be there for them. And they befriend another mother and daughter without a husband and father. Rice, a terrific storyteller and a poetic stylist, takes on a difficult and brutal subject and transforms it into a source of light and hope.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)