Distant Shores [Mass Market Paperback]

Kristin Hannah (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2003

In her remarkable New York Times bestseller, Summer Island, Kristin Hannah struck a chord in readers and critics alike with her portrayal of the bittersweet reunion between an errant mother and her unforgiving daughter. Now Hannah once again reveals the fragile ties that bind a family in transition, as two people choose to escape the limits of their ordinary lives and reach for the extraordinary promise that lies on Distant Shores.

Elizabeth and Jackson Shore married young, raised two daughters, and weathered the storms of youth as they built a future together. But after the children leave home, they quietly drift apart. When Jack accepts a wonderful new job offer, Elizabeth puts her needs aside to follow him across the country. Until the sudden death of her father changes everything.

Grieving and alone, she retreats to an isolated beach house where she packs away the last remnants of her parents’ lives. There, the pieces of a past she never knew unfold to reveal a tender story of lasting devotion, the kind of steadfast commitment that Elizabeth admits is missing from her own marriage. Faced with her own disillusionment, she makes a terrifying decision, risking everything she has for a second chance at happiness.

Enriched by soul-stirring emotion and an appreciation for the simple joy of everyday miracles, Distant Shores is an exquisite reminder of the most precious gifts in life: friends and family, children and lovers, the strength to change, and the courage to forgive–all flawlessly captured by the graceful hands of Kristin Hannah.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Having found her audience with Summer Island and On Mystic Lake, Hannah returns with another second-chance-at-love story, this one as bleak as the soggy Pacific Northwest setting. Perimenopausal former artist Elizabeth Shore is feeling lost and miserable these days, as daughters Jamie and Stephanie matriculate at Georgetown and husband Jack focuses on jump-starting his stalled sports broadcasting career. So Elizabeth, tellingly nicknamed "Birdie," compulsively redecorates her empty nest and pesters Jack with lugubrious questions about what's wrong with their lives. Then Jack scores a journalistic coup, and in his implausibly meteoric return to broadcasting glory, winds up in an efficiency apartment in New York City, halfheartedly fending off the advances of both a nubile assistant and a Hollywood bombshell. Meanwhile, back in rainy Oregon, Birdie grieves for her beloved late father, joins a support group for "passionless" women, starts to paint again and talks to herself in the self-help homilies Hannah favors ("No more cheerleader years for me. I need to get in the game"). She even has a rapprochement with newly widowed stepmother Anita, who, in a particularly explosive burst of character development, somehow transforms from a tacky Southern "Bette Midler on speed" to a white-haired sylph favoring "long, flowing" white dresses. (When Birdie finds her bliss, she discovers she's miraculously lost weight.) Hannah's tried-and-true formula includes the predictable happy ending, complete with life lessons tearfully learned, but only hardcore fans will make it to the last page of this dreary soap.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Library Journal

From Summer Island to On Mystic Lake to Distant Shores, best-selling author Hannah seems to walk on water. Here, as Elizabeth packs up the beach house after her father's death, she comes to realize that her own marriage is all washed up.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 342 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books; ISBN: 0-345-45071-X edition (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345450728
• ISBN-13: 978-0345450722
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #513,417 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kristin Hannah was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When she was eight years old, her father drove the family to Western Washington which they called home.

After working in a trendy advertising agency, Kristin decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words she would never forget from her mother. Kristin was in her third-and final-year of law school and her mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. Kristin was shocked to discover that her mother believed she would become a writer. For the next few months, they collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.

After her mom's death, she packed up all those bits and pieces of paper they'd collected and put them in a box in the back of her closet. Kristin got married and continued practicing law.

Then Kristin found out she was pregnant and was on bed rest for five months. By the time she'd read every book in the house and started asking her husband for cereal boxes to read, she knew she was a goner. That's when her husband reminded her of the book she'd started with her mom. Kristin pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time their son was born, she'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.

The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred her to try harder, work more. In 1990, Kristin got "the call," and in that moment, she went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and has never looked back. In all the years between then and now, she have never lost her love of, or her enthusiasm for, telling stories. Kristin feels truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful, soul-searching novel, July 23, 2002

By 

R. Pride "rpride9485" (Cleveland, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Distant Shores (Hardcover)

Jack and Elizabeth "Birdie" Shore are at a crossroads. After 24 years of marriage, they have raised two beautiful girls and withered the storm of Jack's rise and fall as a football star and his addiction to pain killers. Now Jack's career as a sportscaster is rising, and on the outside, everything looks perfect. But Elizabeth feels she is losing herself. She has raised her children, lifted Jack when he stumbled, and forgiven him for the times he strayed earlier in their marriage. She gave up her dream of becoming a painter because she thought that was what she was supposed to do. But when he beloved father dies suddenly, she realizes how empty her life truly is. And when Jack takes a job that will take him to New York, Elizabeth, for the first time, doesn't follow him and remains in Oregon, hoping to find what will give her her own identity.

Distant Shores is a wonderful, soul searching novel about two people who have lost their way. They're not bad people, and they haven't done terrible things. They still love each other, but as times change and they become different people, they wonder if they love each other enough. Few writers get to the heart of this as well as Kristin Hannah. You will sympathize with both Jack and Elizabeth, understand both their points of view, and hope they will find their way back to each other before it's too late. Very highly recommended.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Ho Hum, June 1, 2005

By 

Wendy Kaplan (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Distant Shores (Audio Cassette)

Maybe I would have liked this book better if I had not suffered through the egregious unabridged audio, with singularly untalented reader Bernadette Quigley, who, throughout the entire book, put her inflections on the wrong words as though she were reciting by rote rather than looking at what she was reading. Example, "Thank you," Elizabeth SAID.

Once having gotten used to that weirdness, one is blown away by the plethora of cliches contained in only one small book. Middle-aged woman faces empty nest and boredom in her marriage. Husband wants something more. Wife wants to "find herself." College-age bratty daughters want mom and dad to stay together forever so they feel secure.

The middle-aged wife, Elizabeth, was once a promising painter, but of course she got married and gave up painting and yada yada yada...husband Jack was once a star quarterback, but "blew out his knee" and got addicted to painkillers, so now he's a third-string TV commentator in Oregon. He yearns to be back in the bigtime. Yawn. Daughters are polar opposites, but both at Georgetown University, sharing a room (as if!!). Back in Tennessee, Elizabeth's Daddy is almost a mockery of grade C Southern Tobacco Grower movies. Stepmother Anita has piled up hair and high heeled shoes and Elizabeth hates her.

Enough. This is probably an OK book to read on a boring plane ride or better yet, when stuck in the airport. But don't expect a single original thought or word.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Story of a Stale Marriage, December 26, 2002

By 

Mamalinde "mamalinde" (Dallas) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Distant Shores (Hardcover)

Yes, it happens, and this author gets just a whole lot of it EXACTLY right. I do wish I could have LIKED Elizabeth (Birdie) Shore a little better, "poor little misunderstood rich girl" comes to mind here, though. The Jackson Shore character really didn't have much depth to him beyond himself and his beloved sports. Did he ever really "get it"? Some of the women characters were richly sketched, and the daughters were artfully portrayed as a study in contrasts. The setting on the Oregon coast was well detailed and occasionally breathtaking but does it match the rather tropical looking cover of the book? Just a lot of bits and pieces that did not work for me - the single handed destruction of the dining room wall being one of them. Some of the rough language seems to come from no where and seems unnecessary and a bit trite. Not a favorite book, but Ms. Hannah does have an interesting spin on the staleness of a marriage, what makes a family, and finding yourself again.