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Critic's Corner
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"Three years earlier, on a warm November morning in 1999, Adrienne Willis had returned to the Inn and at first glance had thought it unchanged, as if the small Inn were impervious to sun and sand and salted mist." Once again, Nicholas Sparks, author of The Notebook, Message in a Bottle, A Walk to Remember, The Rescue, and A Bend in the Road, returns to remind us that love given and received is the most important thing in life. In Nights in Rodanthe, Sparks tells the story of Adrienne Willis, and her family. This is a story of hope, and joy, of sacrifice and forgiveness, and most of all it is the story that reminds us that love is possible at any age, at any time, and often comes when we least expect it. Years ago Adrienne's husband Jack left her for a younger woman. The children were then 14, 13, and 11. Amanda, the youngest child, had been the one most affected by her parents divorce. As the book opens, the children are graduated from college and have families of their own. Amanda had married her college sweetheart, and they were busy raising their two young children. Then, tragedy struck. Brent died of a virulent form of cancer leaving Amanda in a state of deep depression which neither medicine nor her family could cure. Adrienne decides she must take a drastic step to help her daughter. She would tell her daughter about the five nights in Rodanthe that changed her own life. Only Adrienne's father knew of her secret, and he had died in 1996. She called her daughter on the phone to come for coffee, telling her only that they needed to talk. "Now standing in the kitchen of her own home a few months into her sixtieth year, Adrienne hung up the phone after speaking to her daughter. She sat at the table, reflecting on that last visit to the Inn, remembering the long weekend she'd once spent there. Despite all that had happened in the years that had passed since then, Adrienne still held tight to the belief that love was the essence of a full and wonderful life." Adrienne has few illusions about what her children think of her. Yes, they loved her and respected her as a mother, but she knew they would never really know her. "In the eyes of her children, she was kind but predictable, sweet and stable, a friendly soul from another era who'd made her way through life with her naive view of the world intact. She looked the part, of course veins beginning to show on the tops of her hands, a figure more like a square than an hourglass, and glasses grown thicker over the years but when she saw them staring at her with expressions meant to humor her, she sometimes had to stifle a laugh." In keeping with the kind, predictable, sweet, and stable mother that she was, she'd had no desire to change their minds, but today she would change at least one of their minds. She would allow her daughter to see her mother in a different light. If it helped Amanda then it would be worth the sacrifice. Fourteen years ago when Adrienne agreed to help her friend, for one weekend, by tending to the small Inn at Rodanthe, on the coast of North Carolina, she had welcomed the respite from her daily life back home. Adrienne prepared for the one expected guest for the weekend. Her friend Jean had told her a Dr. Paul Flanner would be staying from Thursday through Monday. Why the man would come all the way to Rodanthe in January, Adrienne had no idea, but coming he was and she'd be ready for him. Even now she could see storm clouds gathering on the horizon and knew they were in for a real blow, a nor'easter heading their way. Paul Flanner, 54-years-old, divorced, has just sold his medical practice and come to Rodanthe to escape his own shattered past, and to make a visit on the widower of a former patient. Flanner's story is not unlike other driven professionals who spend their lives always running toward fame and fortune leaving behind them a wake of sorrow. He's a good man, but one who sacrificed his marriage and son to the medical profession. His son is now a doctor at a small clinic deep in the forests of Ecuador. Paul is determined to try and mend their broken relationship by going to Ecuador and showing his son the love of a real father. First, however, he has one loose end to tie up. He must see the husband of Jill Torrelson of Rodanthe. After a routine operation, 62-year-old Jill had died in the recovery room. It was that terrible event, following on the heels of losing his wife and son, that had led Paul to this road in his life. Neither Adrienne nor Paul, two wounded people who had turned to each other for comfort, knew what fate held in store for them. They could not know that in one long weekend they'd set in motion feelings that would resonate throughout the rest of their lives. Call me sentimental, but Nights in Rodanthe affirms Nicholas Sparks' reputation as America's foremost chronicler of the heart. Click Here to Order Nights in Rodanthe (Jones is a published writer & literary critic) |
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Disclaimer
The information compiled on this site is Copyright 1999-2012 by Attard Communications, Inc. and by the individual authors. |
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