Night Road

January 3, 2011
Hannah follows up Winter Garden with a strained story of friendship, social pressures, love, and forgiveness. After a string of foster homes and the death of her heroin-addict mother, Lexi Baill is taken in by a newly discovered great-aunt who lives a spartan life near Seattle. Despite financial problems, the two are glad to have found each other, and though Lexi resolves to stay safely on the periphery at her new high school, she soon meets Mia, unhappy and awkward despite a solid family life, a loving twin brother, Zach, and a closetful of clothes. The friendship flourishes, and Mia's mother, Jude, relieved and pleased for her daughter, draws Lexi into the family circle. But trouble begins in senior year with a slowly growing attraction between Zach and Lexi, who take great pains to make Mia comfortable with the change in the dynamics. This familiar story takes an unfortunate turn deep into after-school-special territory when Lexi, Mia, and Zach collectively make a bad decision that results in a tragedy with extreme repercussions. Even readers who like their melodrama thick will have problems as Hannah pushes credibility to the breaking point, and more than once.

January 15, 2011

A disadvantaged teen finds friendship, acceptance and love with a prosperous Seattle-area family, until a tragic accident changes everything.

Alexa (Lexi) Baill, daughter of a heroin addict, has bounced around the foster-care system for years. A long-lost great aunt, Eva, a Walmart employee, offers Lexi a home in her trailer across the bridge from Pine Island (Hannah's fictional stand-in for Bainbridge Island) near Seattle. At Pine Island High School, Mia, daughter of Jude and Miles Farraday, and twin sister of Zachary, considers herself an outcast. She bonds instantly with the equally alienated Lexi. Soon, the Farraday's opulent Pine Island residence is Lexi's second home. As senior year approaches, Lexi and Zach fall in love and are relieved that Mia approves. Jude, whose days are a pleasant whirl of caring for her elaborate garden and being a supermom, has a strained relationship with her own mother. As seniors, Zach, Mia and Lexi can't avoid Pine Island's teen party scene. One foggy night, Zach and Mia get falling-down drunk, and Lexi, less inebriated, urges Zach to let her drive his Mustang home. (The question of who actually drove is left vague, which dodges several moral bullets, to the story's detriment.) On a hairpin curve, the Mustang spins out and crashes. Mia is thrown from the backseat and killed. Zach and Lexi sustain milder injuries, but Lexi's blood-alcohol level was above the legal limit, and she accepts the blame for killing Mia. Jude turns against her implacably. Lexi, unwilling to burden Eva with the expense of a trial, pleads guilty to vehicular homicide and serves over five years in prison. While incarcerated, she gives birth to Zach's child, Grace, and relinquishes her to the Farradays. Grace bears such an uncanny resemblance to Mia that Jude finds it almost impossible to warm to her. Released from prison, Lexi returns to Pine Island, only to find that her daughter is as isolated and distrustful as any foster child. 

A flawed but never dull drama.

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

November 15, 2010

Former foster child Lexi has become Mia's best friend, and Mia's twin brother, Zach, has fallen in love with her. The twins' mom, Jude, couldn't be happier that her children are happy--until one dark night when Lexi is implicated in a terrible accident and the family is torn apart. Years later, Jude must consider reconciling with Lexi. Get multiples; great for book clubs.

Copyright 2010 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 1, 2011
Hannahs gripping new novel centers around a tragedy that rocks a family to its core. When her twins start high school, overprotective Jude worries that her daughter Mia, who has always lived in the shadow of her popular brother Zach, will be lost in the shuffle. When Mia meets Lexi, an introverted girl who has been scarred by the abandonment of her feckless mother and a life in foster care, Jude is relieved to see that Mia has found a kindred spirit. When Lexi and Zach fall in love during their senior year, they are happy that sensitive Mia accepts their relationship. Though college plans threaten to separate them, the three are on top of the world as they head off to their graduation partyuntil a catastrophic decision that night changes everything. Hannah effectively builds tension as the novel moves towards the pivotal tragedy and maintains suspense afterward not only with several surprising twists but, more subtly, with the way she limns the grief and eventual healing of her appealing characters. A breakout for popular novelist Hannah. HIGH-DEMAND BACKSTORY: With a 400,000-copy first print run and ramped-up promotion and cross-country tour, this will be another best-seller for Hannah.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

Starred review from February 1, 2011

Hannah (Winter Garden), long a favorite in women's fiction, has written a novel that should propel her onto the book club fiction circuit. Although infused with a tad too much soap opera drama, at its heart is a story about the agonizing choices parents face daily as they try to raise their children to be happy, independent, and well-adjusted adults. Jude is devoted to her two children, twins Zach and Mia. Haunted by a distant relationship with her own mother, she is determined to give her son and daughter every possible opportunity along with an abundance of love and support. Her physician husband, Miles, is supportive but takes a more laid-back approach. Zach is one of the popular kids in high school, Mia not so much. When Mia becomes friends with Lexi, the new girl in school, things begin to look up. Then an unexpected tragedy forces several of the main characters to face a profound and life-changing event. VERDICT Not quite at the level of a Jodi Picoult or Chris Bohjalian story but awfully darn close. Longtime fans will love this rich, multilayered reading experience, and it's an easy recommendation for book clubs. [400,000-copy first printing; national tour; see Prepub Alert, LJ 11/15/10.]--Margaret Hanes, Civic Center Lib., Warren, MI

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.