On Mystic Lake: A Novel

This is one of Ms. Hannah's earlier books, from the 1990s, and I read it for my book club. It just wasn't my cup of tea. We also read her recent Vietnam War set "The Women" earlier in the year, and despite a few soap opera moments, there was a lot to appreciate in that story. This one, not so much. To me it read like one extended Lifetime movie. Not bad if you are in the mood for one, but hugely predictable. Also fairly unrealistic in terms of how quickly the alcoholism story thread is resolved, and how amicable the ultimate split-up is. But it has all the feels.

Well, yes, it's "chick lit", but it is well written, not as predictable as I thought it might be, and I cried several times, so what can I say? Characters with plenty of shades of gray and about whom I cared. Perfect rainy afternoon book.

I am reading most of Kristin Hannah's books as they become affordable for me. I loved two of her latest ones and this one is a step beyond her previous earliest books. It had a tendency for me to be too much of a romance book with a miserable rich woman who married a cheating husband. She bought the idea that she needed to sacrifice her dreams and be a housewife and mother in a rich area of Laguna Niguel, CA. She never felt a part of the area and yearned to go back to the rain forests of Washington. I have lived in Laguna Niguel and loved being able to go to the beach within a few minutes while not being rich.

The book opens with Annie Colwater and her rich competitive husband who feared intimacy, he didn't know how to express love to show more his wife or daughter. They are taking their daughter, Natalie to the airport so she can study overseas.

Annie's husband had affairs but this one is different, he asks her a divorce. Boom! Her world is shattered.

She goes back home to her father in Washington. Having lost her mother at young age, her father was lost and didn't connect with her. But she and he are getting closer now. She gets her hair cut, her husband always wanted her in long hair. Changes to comfortable and practical clothes and hears that her close friend from childhood had died. She, the girlfriend and a guy named Nick were a threesome and Nick married her girlfriend and had a diaughter, Izzy, short of Isabella.

To me, the part about Izzy was the best part of the story. When I was a child about Izzy's age, my mother was admitted to a hospital for several depression and like Izzy, I had no one to comb my hair, wash my clothes, as my father was so busy with med school. I did not stop speaking like Izzy but I became very shy and people would forget that I was in the room.

There is a lot of crying by Annie in this book, and there were Hallmark movie moments which don't seem real but I loved the part about Annie and Izzy.

If you read this book, read about their relationship and you will see why I identified with Izzy. show less

Hannah pulls out all the stops in this one. She dumps in crumbling marriage, empty-nest syndrome, long-lost loves, neglected children, traumatized children, loss of a parent, homelessness, substance abuse, suicide, mental illness, and pretty much every hanky-dampening situation in the romance writers' playbook.

In other words, her fans will eat this up.

It all starts when Annie Colwater's husband announces, apparently out of the blue, that he has fallen in love with another woman and wants a divorce. He drops this bombshell moments after the couple has put their 17-year-old daughter on a plane for London.

Shocked and confused, Annie returns to her hometown on the Olympic Peninsula, to spend time with her father and to try to reorganize her show more life. Looking for something to fill her days, she agrees to help her first love, Nick, with his six-year-old daughter, so traumatized by her mother's suicide that she is nearly catatonic.

Things build pretty predictably from there, and even the "surprise twist" at the three-quarter point is something the long-time romance reader will have seen coming, though Hannah does manage to dodge one cliche bullet in the resolution.

The ending drags somewhat as Annie tries to decide between new-old love and old-established love, between comfort and adventure, and between doing what's expected of her and doing what she really wants. show less

This is an older Kristin Hannah book and a great read. Annie is very typically a woman who was raised with the idea that you needed a man who could provide for you. Any married woman who feels that the responsibility for a happy marriage rests on her will see herself in this book. You know how it will end by the journey to get there is very well written.

A great "take me away" read that has true to life characters. I think Kristin Hannah consistenly hits the mark in her books in making strong female characters that go through struggles and moral dilemmas we all can relate to----either personally or through someone we know. Kristin Hannah has replaced Danielle Steel in my library for the "chick flick" book that I can escape in.

This was a sad and depressing novel. I wanted to stop reading it a bunch of times, but kept on reading for some reason. Probably because this got high ratings and she’s got several top selling books out now. I did like the ending. I may read one or two of her other books, but not until next year. The little girl, Izzy in the book was so darn cute. And, I was rooting for a happy ending for the protagonist, Annie.