Heart Like Mine

January 28, 2013
When Hatvany (Best Kept Secret) first introduces readers to Grace McAllister, the thirty-six-year old feels content that children have never been a part of her life. When she meets Victor Hansen, a divorced father of two, she decides to give him a chance, with the knowledge that his custody is limited to alternate weekends. Shortly after he proposes, though, Grace is unexpectedly thrust into the role of full-time stepmother when Victor’s ex-wife dies of a heart attack. With Victor running a busy restaurant, Grace assumes the difficult job of managing seven-year-old Max and Ava, 13. If that weren’t difficult enough, Ava becomes determined to learn everything she can about her mother, a task made more complicated by Victor’s unwillingness to discuss his ex-wife. Grace generously explores memories and old photo albums with the children, but what Ava discovers on her own roils this fragile arrangement as the incipient family unit tries to start a new life. Hatvany maintains a difficult balance between compelling and saccharine prose, and readers will appreciate the effort. Forced into a tough position, Grace is an easy protagonist to root for, at times overshadowing the broadly drawn, less relatable Victor. Look beyond the more melodramatic aspects and there’s a lot to like.

January 1, 2013
A work of fiction that reads like a collection of memoir pieces. The voices are so down-to-earth and familiar and the events so much like real life that readers will feel like they know the characters. Grace is a wonderful, witty woman who works her way up to a well-paid and prestigious position and then gives it up to work for an organization devoted to helping victims of domestic violence. You learn to love her right away and are glad when she meets Victor, a smart and gentle man. You feel the pain of Victor's two children through his ex-wife, Kelli: Ava, a precocious teenager, helps her emotionally fragile mother and cares for her younger brother, Max. Max and Ava live with Kelli and spend alternate weekends with Victor until Kelli dies shortly after learning that the husband she herself had asked to leave is engaged to be married to Grace. From the chapters about Kelli, one can sense a painful past, ultimately revealed. What keeps the reader turning pages is not suspense (there are no real surprises here) but rather the desire to keep company with the likable cast. An uplifting and heartwarming experience.

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February 1, 2013
When Kelli dies unexpectedly, she leaves behind two children and a secret. The kids move in with their father, Victor, formerly an every-other-weekend parent, and his brand-new fianc'e, Grace. But Grace, compassionate as she is, never wanted to be a mother, and her interactions with grieving 13-year-old Ava are often fraught. Independently and, later, together, the two work to unravel the mystery of Kelli's troubled youth and the reason for her deep depression ( Kelli didn't set out to lie about her past. At first, she thought she could just outrun it. ). Narrated alternately by Grace and Ava in the present, with flashbacks to Kelli from age 14 until the day she died, the novel explores myriad themes sure to appeal to fans of women's fiction: love and loss, parenthood, grief, friendship, and complex family dynamics. The ending, which wraps up as cozily as a 30-minute sitcom, is somewhat unbelievable, but Hatvany's compassion for each female character is evident throughout, and readers will find their hearts, at times, breaking in three.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2013, American Library Association.)