Family Blessings [Hardcover]

Fern Michaels (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 19, 2004

Right before Thanksgiving, a freak tornado descends on Larkspur, the small town in Pennsylvania's Allegheny Mountains where matriarch and candy magnate Loretta Cisco -- affectionately called "Cisco" by her grandchildren -- lives, and levels the home she's inhabited for fifty years.

Then there's more bad news: Cisco's beloved triplet grandchildren, Hannah, Sara, and Sam, all newlyweds, are experiencing marital problems and they refuse to confide in their grandmother about what's wrong. Sam's wife, Sonia, has left him, and Hannah and Sara fear that their husbands are having affairs. Why else would they be coming home so late every night and seem to be keeping secrets?

As the citizens of Larkspur help to rebuild Cisco's home in time for Christmas, she vows to work a holiday miracle that will hold her family together.

With "Family Blessings" Fern Michaels uses her keen insight into the emotional bonds between family members and the passions that bring men and women together to create an enduring novella that celebrates love, family, and forgiveness, and shows why she is one of the world's best-loved storytellers.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fanciful premises and implausible turns of events are the stuff Christmas fiction is made of, but Michaels takes matters too far in this contrived sequel to her 2002 Christmas novella, No Place Like Home, basing her story on a misunderstanding that could be cleared up in a 10-second conversation. Sara and Hannah, two of the three Cisco triplets, are perturbed that their hubbies are coming home later and later, and immediately become convinced that they're having affairs. The truth? Hapless Zack and Joel have bought an expensive boat to sail around the world and are afraid to tell their wives. Sonia, wife of third triplet Sam, has just left her husband—why? He's not ready to start a family, and she's accidentally pregnant. Does she simply tell him? Of course not. The six lovebirds bumble around misunderstanding each other against the backdrop of cozy, homey Larkspur, Pa., where neighbors help the triplets' grandmother rebuild her tornado-destroyed home. The flimsy premise and artificial drama suck all the charm out of the story, and while Michaels's devoted fans might pick it up out of habit, this soggy tale will frustrate most.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Michaels revisits the Cisco family--famous candy company owners and denizens of a small town in Pennsylvania. Loretta, the matriarch, and her beau, Ezra, are lucky enough to survive a surprise tornado that flattens her family home. The close-knit community quickly pulls together to aid everyone who was affected, but Loretta, who is usually levelheaded and commonsensical, has a difficult time getting over the loss of her things. Her worries are multiplied when the grandchildren she raised, the triplets Sam, Hannah, and Sara, appear to have troubles of their own that they are unwilling to share with her. All three have recently married, and all three are experiencing marital difficulties. Sam's wife has disappeared, and Sara and Hannah are certain their doctor husbands are having affairs. But there's a larger issue: the "Trips" were raised as one unit, and they're not used to needing anyone but each other. Their predicament is explored in the same winning and humorous manner the ever-popular Michaels always employs in her believable and highly entertaining tales. Maria Hatton
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Atria (October 19, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743477472
• ISBN-13: 978-0743477475
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,247,257 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Fern Michaels is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Fool Me Once, Sweet Revenge, The Nosy Neighbor, Pretty Woman, and dozens of other novels and novellas. There are over seventy million copies of her books in print. Fern Michaels has built and funded several large day-care centers in her hometown, and is a passionate animal lover who has outfitted police dogs across the country with special bulletproof vests. She shares her home in South Carolina with her four dogs and a resident ghost named Mary Margaret.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Ugh!, November 7, 2004

By 

G. Greene - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Family Blessings (Hardcover)

This book starts out interestingly enough, but it soon grows tedious due to the highly unbelievable actions and motiviations of its characters. The six protagonists act more like grade school children than adults, and they become fatiguing very quickly. The book is full of cliched platitudes about life, and the use of physical violence on the part of the women strikes another sour note. Was this supposed to be funny? The only positive thing I have to say about this book is that it's short, so the reader is soon put out of her/his misery in watching the unentertaining antics of people who need to grow up.

This one isn't even worth borrowing from the library.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Waste of time, December 1, 2004

By 

A. Goldstein "bedreader" (New York City) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Family Blessings (Hardcover)

I expected to zip through this 'little' book but I suffered through it and finally after 5 days of getting no where, I skipped to the last page.

A big waste. Lame plot. I hate it when all the main characters have similar names...all beginning in "S". And we were dealing with triplets and their spouses. Too confusing.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing sequel, January 1, 2005

By 

Book Fan "Reads a lot" (Chicago, IL) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Family Blessings (Hardcover)

I enjoyed No Place Like Home and was glad to see Family Blessings, the sequel come out. Was I disappointed! It's a short book, but the story was so tedious and repetitive that it seemed twice as long.

Cisco, the founder of Cisco Candies, loses her home and everything in it to a tornado at Halloween along with other people in the valley. Apparently the valley is habited by very talented people, because everyone had a new home built and furnished by Thanksgiving. But Cisco isn't happy with her new home, because it isn't filled with all of her "things." She spends a great deal of time constantly complaining about this. She also knows that her trips are having problems, but rather than talking to them and trying to help, she lives by her motto of "when you don't know what to do, do nothing" which leads to the trips problems being very overblown and dramatic.

The trips problems are the girls think their husbands are cheating on them, and their brother's wife leaves him because she's pregnant and he doesn't want kids at that time. Do they try to solve anything by talking? No, they just keeping arguing with their spouses and themselves. They have fights with themselves and their spouses in public. These characters weren't anything like they were in the first book. The dialogue was boring and repetitive and made the characters seem more like childish, spoiled brats rather than the adults they were supposed to be. There is a father in the picture, but he doesn't help. He complains about having been made to go work in the candy industry instead of following his dream of making furniture, which he gets to do (and quite well with no experience) helping rebuild everyone's home.

The story was short enough that I thankfully finished it in two days. The ending was very predictable and left room for another installment to the series, which I hope won't happen. This book is not worth the time to read. There are much better books out there that can be enjoyed. I'm sorry I bought it. I normally pass books on to others when I'm done, but this one is going straight to the library where it will probably enjoy a long shelf life collecting dust.