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Summary: They Learn A New Love As Family When Tragedy Occurs
Review: Mikaela Campbell, beloved wife and mom of two, lies in a coma. It is now up to her husband, Liam, to hold the fort together, to care for their grieving, and frightened children. Doctors have told Liam not to expect a miracle recovery, but he maintains hope that love can accomplish what medical science cannot. Day after day he sits by her bedside, holding her hand, telling her the stories of their life together.Then he discovers evidence of his wife's secret past-a long hidden first marriage to international movie star Julian True. Liam's search leads him to a painful, inescapeable truth: Julian was more than simply Mikaela's first husband. He was the love of her life. Mikaela responds to julian's name; it is only a blink, nothing more, but it convinces Liam that Julian may be the only person who can bring her back to life. But at what cost? Does Liam love his wife enough to risk losing her to a man no woman can resist? I enjoyed the book a lot. I found it very engrossing all the way through!
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Summary: While She Was Sleeping!
Review: On the surface it would appear as though the Campbell family of Last Bend, Washington are your typical and average family. Liam, is a hometown doctor, and the son of the founding father while his wife, Mikaela, is a former nurse now devoted to her family and horses. Thay have a teen-age daughter Jacey and younger son Bret. But things are not always as they appear for Mikaela has hidden a secret past from her family which will come back to haunt all of them. In her latest book, Angel Falls, the well known romance writer Kristin Hannah has written a contemporary title which is filled with great emotion and poignancy. During a typical morning's ride, Mikaela, is thrown from her horse and sustains a head trauma which results in a coma. While Liam and the others talk to her and pray for her, Liam learns about Mikaela's secret past. Then sacrificing both his love for her and family life as they know it, he seeks help from the one man who may ulitmately change the Campbells lives as they know them. While this book is a fast read unlike most romance novels it is told from the man's point of view. But as I read it I couldn't help but feel as though something was missing. While most romance novels are somewhat predictable, I have always enjoyed Kristin Hannah's wasy of enveloping her readers with her characters lives and situations. Unfortunately, this time, I didn't find her characters as finely drawn nor the events during Mikaela's coma plausible. Then again, if you're looking for a good beach read this summer, Angel Falls may be just the right book.
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Summary: A Book for Pool-Side
Review: Some books are such light fare to be perfect for pool-side readers. "Angel Falls" by Kristin Hannah qualifies are an ideal summer read; not to deep or dark, it is optimistic, romantic and unabashedly sentimental. Its view of life, marriage and family is as idealistic (and naive) as a teenager's first summer love. Liam and Mike (Michaela) Campbell, and their children Jacey and Brett, are blissfully enjoying their idyllic life in a Norman Rockwell town when Mike is injured in a riding accident and lapses into a coma. Left to fend for themselves, her husband and children learn to get through days without her, while at the same time discovering that they hardly knew her, when secrets of her past (a first marriage and Hollywood lifestyle) begin to surface. As the darkness of her sleep begins to lift, she remains shrouded in the shadows of her past, but her deceptions have wounded and confused her family, particularly when the subject of her betrayal suddenly appears to assist in her convalescence. Can Mike awaken her own heart and help her family move beyond the specter of her past? If this description sounds similar to a storyline in a soap opera, then it is being interpreted correctly. "Angel Falls" is that predictable and syrupy. But reading it is not an unpleasant way to wile away some summer hours, as it is a mellow story with warmth and fuzzy feelings. While not quite a "romance novel", its idealization of love (a.k.a. "true love") and marriage have all the requisite dramatic elements for the genre. I expect that fans of Nicholas Sparks ("The Notebook" and "A Walk to Remember") will migrate to this book, particularly those who liked Sparks' drab "Message in a Bottle". However, "Angel Falls" will probably disappoint them; it is not nearly as moving or well-written as "The Notebook" or "A Walk in the Woods", which both reduced me to tears. Simply, I never wanted to cry for the Campbell family, which is the emotion Hannah was trying to wrench from her readers. "Angel Falls" is mushy - sentimentalism for its own sake and none other. There are no profound lessons or disturbing commentaries on modern love, marriage or family to burden a reader or cloud the sun on the beach. Enjoy this book there!
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Summary: A Touching Story
Review: This book brings Mikayla's life into the open. She is a loving wife with two children and known throughout the small town of Angel Falls. She suffers from a head injury and goes into a coma. Her husband sits with her, talking and singing, bringing her flowers, doing everything he can to wake her. The only word she says is "Jules" and her husband figures out, with the help of her mother and a dress he found in her closet, that she was once married to movie star Julian True. At the end of his ideas, he calls Julian, hoping he will remember her and come to visit her and be able to awake her. The family is tested as Mikayla has to choose which life she will return to and where her love and loyalty lie. Her husband's love never ceases and he put himself on the line for her, but will it end in her leaving him behind?
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Summary: Great Summer Fluff Read
Review: This book was a perfect 'sitting by the pool with an ice cold beer and celebrating the advent of summer' read. I read it over the Memorial Day weekend and it was just what the doctor ordered to rest my brain and escape reality for a few blissful hours. The story of Dr. Liam Campbell and Mikaela Campbell and how a moment of tragedy forever changes their lives and brings out old secrets and new strengths that they didn't know they had. My favorite sentence in the whole book (uttered my Mikaela) which pretty much sums it all up was: "How do you tell a man that at last you'd grown up, that you'd learned true love wasn't a night of passionate sex under a sky lit up by fireworks, but an ordinary Sunday morning when your husband brought you a glass of water, two aspirins, and heating pad for your cramps?" The plot was a bit short on substance and I would like to have seen a few of the characters better developed, but overall it was an enjoyable book.
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Summary: ANGEL FALLS
Review: This is a fantastic read. It will make you laugh and make you cry. It pulls at your heart strings. When Mikaela gets injured and goes into a coma her family all has to learn to deal with it in their own way. Its what Liam finds out and the decision he has to make that could make or break this family. I highly recommend this book.
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Summary: Which is the true love?
Review: This is a very enjoyable romance novel. Married to a doctor, Liam Campbell, in a small town in northwest Washington state, Mikaela falls from a horse, strikes her head and enters a coma from which it seems she may never awaken. But Liam, the narrator of this tale, does not give up hope. He spends long hours by her bed telling her of his love, her two kids and memories they share, hoping something will awaken the woman within. His efforts produce naught. Then he discovers in Mikaela's closet mementoes she has kept of her first marriage. He knew she was married before but is startled to learn that she was married to world-famous movie star Julian True. Seeing the mementoes, he realizes that she has never stopped loving True. When he mentions True's name, she blinks. After much anguish he decides to contact True in the hope that his voice may awaken Mikaela from her slumber. True comes to town, the plot thickens and in the end true love prevails. But is it True love? Read the book to find out.
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Summary: Buenas Noches Ms. Hannah
Review: This is one Latino lady that after reading the posted reviews found it interesting that not one of these mentioned the Mexican heritage of the heroine, Mike. Mike's poverty and background is pertinent to the storyline, but maybe other reviewers were trying to be politically correct in not mentioning this aspect of Mike's mixed heritage. I only mention the fact because of the heroines name, and to the extent that we are presented with several variations of her given name Mikaela (Mike and Kayla) as her nicknames. The name in Spanish, incidently, is spelled Micaela, no "k" in it. I found it distracting that there were several errors in the Spanish spoken by Rosa, Mike's mom. The most obvious of these was "Buenos Noches", which even non-Spanish speaking readers may have caught. The other flubs were wrong conjugation of a Spanish word, or incorrect use of a phrase. I liked the story well enough, at least up until the time Mike woke up from her coma, but I found it distracting that the Spanish words thrown in were often incorrect. It would have been better had the author had someone fluent in Spanish read through her novel first before its publication. Like I indicated, the book was entertaining, but I found the second part of the story to be too contrived, it pretty much fell flat after Julian arrived on the scene and Mike woke up from her coma. Liam was too forgiving of a wife that kept her obsession with Julian (a pillowcase in her closet filled with momentos of a first marriage) hidden from him for over ten years time. I enjoyed Ms. Hannah's novel Mystic Lake, and others as well, but do not think that this this is on par with those others.
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Summary: 375 pages of sappy, irritating drivel
Review: This is quite possibly the stupidest book ever written since "Where The Heart Is". Given the choice between reading this and licking a Chicago transient's backside, I highly suggest the latter course of action. Fully given from a feminized point of view, the plot unfolds in expectation that years of a wife lying to her husband should and will be easily forgiven. Highly unrealistic and socially dangerous feminist sentiment abounds in this novel, cover to cover. Men are soulless, accepting drones. Women get away with whatever they choose. Long live the New World Order.
Rating:
Summary: Predictably written
Review: This story's premise is a good one, but it's a bit too "tear-jerky" for me. All of us women would like to have a husband like Liam, but I think he's definately not a living-breathing human male. I have never heard of a man that is that sensitive and romantic and under all circumstances. For those who love a heart-warming romance story, this is the book for them. For me - I need something more realistic.
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