Twelve Times Blessed (Mitchard, Jacquelyn)

From Publishers Weekly
The author of The Deep End of the Ocean delivers once again in this overstuffed story about a middle-aged woman's complicated second marriage. She chronicles one year in the life of True Dickinson, the owner of a thriving mail-order business on Cape Cod. Widowed for eight years, she is raising her 10-year-old son, Guy, with the help of her office assistant, Isabelle, and her controlling mother, Kathleen. On her 43rd birthday, she is lamenting her lack of love life when fate, in the form of a road accident, brings her together with Hank Bannister, a man 10 years younger than she. They court and marry quickly-then life gets tricky. Having been freewheeling most of his life, Hank is loath to accept his new responsibilities. True, for her part, must do more than just pencil him into her structured life; he wants to feel needed and integral. Hank, a sexy chef of Creole background, is as much a laid-back Southerner as True is a mistrustful New Englander. "He may be one in a million. Or this may be the biggest ratio of bullshit since time began," True thinks. Mitchard infuses the courtship and domestic life with gentle humor. Kathleen is a caricature of the withholding mother, but such characters as True's brother, Dog; her new mother-in-law, Clothilde; and True herself resonate with distinctive voices as Mitchard explores the intimate details involved in making a family work.Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
The widowed True Dickinson feels a bit wistful on her 43rd birthday, but love shows up when she lands in a ditch on the way home from her birthday party. Look for a one-day laydown. Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From AudioFile
The title refers to the business started by True Dickinson: a gift-of-the-month club for new babies and their moms. Aside from her flourishing business, True has a young son, a mother, friends with lives of their own, and her own feelings of loss and emptiness, until she meets a man . . . a younger man. Narrator Robin Miles delivers the story in straightforward fashion and creates various voices and accents from Cape Cod to New Orleans to color the dialogue. In the author interview at the end of the tape Mitchard expresses her preference for narrators who vocally differentiate characters. Miles does so, but, unfortunately, many of the voices she provides are unsympathetic to the characters and, therefore, do not succeed. J.P. © AudioFile 2003, Portland, Maine-- Copyright © AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
True Dickinson has everything: a loving 10-year-old son, Guy; a successful business; and a cadre of friends who mostly fill the empty places in her life--until she falls for Hank Bannister, a restaurateur 10 years her junior. Hank is handsome and sensitive--a walking projection of every woman's fantasy boyfriend--and he is attracted to True the first time they meet. They fall dizzily in love, and the first 100 pages of Mitchard's latest novel read like an unusually well written potboiler. When Hank convinces True to marry him after three weeks' acquaintance, readers will either swoon at the romance of it all or be put off by the stupefying self-absorption of a woman who marries a virtual stranger without even telling her son. Though Hank eventually wins Guy over, the marriage runs into trouble when True gets pregnant and Hank begins to feel trapped. The rest of the novel consists of endless soul-searching discussions between True and her mother-in-law, True and Hank, True and her long-suffering friends, and so on. With the exception of her two principals, Mitchard's characters are appealing, and the critical and commercial success of The Deep End of the Ocean (1996) will ensure demand for her latest novel. Meredith Parets
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved


Book Description

Jacquelyn Mitchard is one of America's best-loved storytellers. Fans adore her novels for their exquisite, gripping stories about family bonds. Now this master of the drama of daily life offers readers a different kind of boy-meets-girl tale, by turns frank and playful, that ponders the question: Can love conquer marriage?

It is True Dickinson's forty-third birthday, and her best friends have gathered on this snowy night in Cape Cod at a trendy neighborhood restaurant to celebrate. True has never felt more alone.

It's been eight years since the death of her husband, a pilot who, ironically, died in a car crash, leaving her to raise their son on her own. Both her son and her small business are thriving, and True's life is full. The success of her company, the love of her friends, and the proximity of her mother (for better and for worse) leave her with very little time for reflection, but if not now, when? Coming up on forty-three makes True realize that there is an empty space in her life that friends and family cannot fill. She feels her youth and beauty slipping away, and the possibility for romance has never seemed more remote.

But everything will change the moment True and her beloved assistant, Isabelle, slide into a snow-filled ditch on the drive home. Saved by a young man she met earlier at the restaurant, True comes face-to- face with the opportunity to let love back into her life -- that is, if she can overcome her own fears, and if these two spirits can find a way to tame each other's wild hearts and to curb their supremely independent natures.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Though True Dickinson was widowed eight years ago, her young son, her thriving business, and her loving friends give her a full life. Still, her fory-third birthday party, on a snowy Cape Cod night, is cause to reflect and lament her dwindling youth, beauty, and chances at romance.

But everything changes the moment True slides into a ditch on the drive home and comes face-to-face with an opportunity to let love back into her life.

Twelve Times Blessed is the story of one year of transformation in a woman's life, and an unforgettable tale of the perils and pleasures of love in the modern age.

SYNOPSIS

Afterword

On her 43rd birthday, widower True Dickinson admits that her son, her thriving business, and her loving friends can't give her the one thing that's missing in her life: romance. But everything changes when her car slides into a ditch, and she stares opportunity in the face.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

The author of The Deep End of the Ocean delivers once again in this overstuffed story about a middle-aged woman's complicated second marriage. She chronicles one year in the life of True Dickinson, the owner of a thriving mail-order business on Cape Cod. Widowed for eight years, she is raising her 10-year-old son, Guy, with the help of her office assistant, Isabelle, and her controlling mother, Kathleen. On her 43rd birthday, she is lamenting her lack of love life when fate, in the form of a road accident, brings her together with Hank Bannister, a man 10 years younger than she. They court and marry quickly-then life gets tricky. Having been freewheeling most of his life, Hank is loath to accept his new responsibilities. True, for her part, must do more than just pencil him into her structured life; he wants to feel needed and integral. Hank, a sexy chef of Creole background, is as much a laid-back Southerner as True is a mistrustful New Englander. "He may be one in a million. Or this may be the biggest ratio of bullshit since time began," True thinks. Mitchard infuses the courtship and domestic life with gentle humor. Kathleen is a caricature of the withholding mother, but such characters as True's brother, Dog; her new mother-in-law, Clothilde; and True herself resonate with distinctive voices as Mitchard explores the intimate details involved in making a family work. 14-city author tour; rights sold in Holland, Italy, the U.K. and Poland. (Apr.) Forecast: Mitchard's fans will flock to buy this book, since most of them are aware of her well-publicized marriage to a man a decade her junior. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Mitchard's fourth novel (after A Theory of Relativity) is a lengthy recounting of one year in the life of 43-year-old widow True Dickinson. Now running a successful mail-order baby gift business, True is restless for a little romance as the memories of her somewhat unhappy marriage fade. The standard cast of characters is on hand to aid or impede her efforts: True's co-workers, fey twentysomething Isabelle and equally fey gay-guy Rudy; stalwart and practical friend Franny; cute and brilliantly talented son Guy; and interfering mom Kathleen. And, of course, there's Hank, the almost-too-good-to-be-true 33-year-old chef who rescues her during a blizzard and falls madly in love with her. True has this one year to learn to love or to turn into a replica of her bitter and isolated mother. Since she is well on her way to the latter, it takes business disasters, sudden illnesses, weddings, deaths, pregnancy, and many fights before she begins to soften. Mitchard's tendency to analyze characters mid-action creates a sense of distance and makes this a less than compelling tale. Still, fans of her books will probably demand this one. For popular fiction collections. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 12/02.]-Jan Blodgett, Davidson Coll. Lib., NC Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews