Down by the Water [Hardcover]

Caroline Upcher (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 22, 2001

Hope Collins-Calder is beginning to lose her grip: she has a high-powered real estate job in the Hamptons that keeps her permanently stressed, an ex-husband she can't get out of her mind, a current husband she is beginning to regret, and three children who are running wild. When her latest child-care person leaves her in the lurch, she asks Eddie, her husband -- an Englishman hopelessly out of his depth working at an American publishing house -- if he will call his sister in London for the name of a good British nanny.

Annabel Quick arrives on the scene, but Mary Poppins she is not. Annabel is fifteen years older than Hope, unmarried, brokenhearted, and until a recent mysterious fire, lived with her mother all her adult life, She has come to the United States, and to this job, in search of a brief escape. And since Hope can't afford to be picky, Annabel gets the job.

Annabel sets about getting the Collins-Calder house in order, and finds to her surprise that as she does so, her own heart slowly begins to heal. When she meets Sheldon, a handsome local carpenter with penetrating blue eyes who has come to work on the house, she feels the stirring of emotions she thought she'd buried long ago. Sheldon's world offers Annabel a chance to move beyond the unhappiness that brought her to the United States in the first place. However, Annabel can't ignore the torch that Hope seems to carry for her ex, and as the summer unfolds, and marriages and old feelings are tested, Annabel becomes more a part of the family than she bargained for. And she and Hope each discover the surprises and promises of romance in this exceptionally entertaining, emotionally staggering, and positively original novel from a first-class writer.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Upcher's lovers are all star-crossed in this with-it, literate sitcom about who's right for whom. Hope Collins, a high-powered Hamptons real estate agent, is married to husband number two, the helpless/hopeless but charming British Eddie Calder, an editor at a New York publishing house and the father of baby Booty. Hope has two older children eight-year-old Harry and six-year-old Coco by her bounder ex-husband, Craig, now a hotshot Hollywood producer. She still carries a torch for this stinker, who butters her up only so she'll come baby-sit the kids on the rare occasions they see him. Feeling the need for a Mary Poppins to set all right, Hope requires Eddie to find one, and his sister sends along 47-year-old Annabel Quick. Annabel has the training but hasn't worked as a nanny for years; her plan is to come to the U.S. to escape the shambles of her personal life in England. Will she straighten out the disastrous Collins-Calder household and find time for a bit of romance herself? This work is charming, if a bit light, with gentle befuddlement standing in for suspense. Though initially Hope seems to be quite the empty career woman, she grows on the reader, and the kids add a realistic dimension, as do in-law and co-worker problems. While Upcher's characters take a ridiculous amount of time to come to the obvious conclusions, this is still an entertaining ride. (June)
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Hamptons real estate agent Hope Collins-Calder can't manage her own life, much less those of her three children four if you count husband No. 2. So, like many other upwardly mobile women, she enlists the services of a nanny. The latest entry in the daycare brigade is misfortune-prone Annabel Quick, late of Cornwall, England. A single and attractive 45, she gladly accepts the offer only to find herself in the midst of a live-action soap opera. Unhappily remarried to a Brit, Hope yearns for the first husband who abandoned her while the children run amuck. Meanwhile, Annabel is attracting men like flies. Since she's never been lucky in love, it doesn't surprise her that she falls for the least suitable candidate. Both Hope and Annabel, so dissimilar on the surface, learn that matters of the heart override logic. By turns touching and amusing, Upcher's fourth novel will make excellent beach reading. [The British-born Upcher once worked in the Hamptons as a nanny for director Mike Nichols. Ed.] Jodi L. Israel, MLS, Jamaica Plain, M.
- Jodi L. Israel, MLS, Jamaica Plain, MA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins; 1st edition (May 22, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060185686
• ISBN-13: 978-0060185688
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 2.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #7,510,716 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Why Did I Finish This?, June 23, 2002

By 

BeachReader (Delaware) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Down by the Water (Mass Market Paperback)

This book was so badly written and disorganized, the characters were so poorly developed....I do not know why I finished it.

What little was revealed about these mostly spoiled and unlikeable characters made me want to give most of them a swift kick. The situations were farfetched and unrealistic --almost laughable. The plot, if one can call it that, jumped all over the place and never returned to where it left off. Contrivances and coincidences abounded. It was so obvious how it would end.

This book sorely needed some strong editorial input to get it re-organized and clean it up.

I had looked forward to this book since I really liked one of this author's other books, "Grace and Favor". It is a shame Ms. Upcher did not take more care with "Down by the Water".

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Unlikable characters in an uninteresting story, September 23, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Down by the Water (Mass Market Paperback)

There's not much to like here. The characters are, without exception, annoying and unlikable, from status-obsessed Hope right down to her destructive two-year-old daughter, Booty. If this family lived next door to me, I'd move. Luckily, all I had to do was toss the book without finishing it.

A huge disappointment and a waste of money. Keep browsing.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Ok book, but I cared more about the nanny than Hope, August 19, 2002

By 

"hronovech" (Ocean Grove, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Down by the Water (Hardcover)

The book was an ok, average book. I thought that Hope was very spoiled and she annoyed me. I just couldn't really get into caring about her. The nanny was a more interesting character. It was strange how they ended really quickly by summing everything up and solving all the issues-it was a little too fast.
I don't think I'll look for other books by this author. Maybe if Hope had had some turnaround and decided not to be so spoiled and obsessed with money, she would have interested me more.

-heather