Grace Notes [Hardcover]

Charlotte Vale Allen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1, 2002

Early in her marriage, Grace Loring became the victim of her husband's sudden, unpredictable rages. Taking her infant daughter and a few belongings, Grace got into her car and fled the safety of her brother Gus's home in Vermont.

Now Grace is a successful author. Devoted fans find support and comfort in her unflinchingly honest writing and regularly contact her via her Web site. Her daughter, Nicky, has thrived in her uncle's happy, yet unorthodox, home; Gus is the only father she has known and she adores him. And Grace has become a caregiver to her brother since the onset of a debilitating disease.

Accustomed to abused women writing to ask for advice, Grace is sympathetic when she is contracted by a troubled young woman named Stephanie Baine. In the course of their e-mail correspondence, Stephanie reveals details of a nightmarish life: her terrifying abduction as a teenager and the complete lack of support from her parents; the psychological and escalating physical abuse she is now undergoing at the hands of her husband. Grace's advice is clear and to the point: Stephanie must do whatever is necessary to escape this madman.

After several weeks of an intensive exchange, the e-mails abruptly stop, and Grace begins to fear the worst for Stephanie. Then the e-mails resume, and what Grace comes to learn casts doubt on everything she believed about the person she thought she knew. Who is Stephanie Baine? Has anything she's told Grace been the truth? Is she really a young woman in danger, or is something else -- something sinister, even deadly -- going on?

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Answering e-mail leads to danger for bestselling author Grace Loring in bestselling author Allen's 36th novel. Grace's autobiography, Hit or Miss, recounts her experience as a battered wife; she takes her infant daughter and seeks refuge from an abusive husband in the Vermont home of her brother, Gus, where she pursues a career writing and lecturing about abuse. Her work attracts many fans, including women in need of help. When she receives an e-mail from Stephanie Baine, whose abusive marriage and neglectful parents remind Grace of her own, she begins an e-mail dialogue, encouraging Stephanie to talk through her problems and confront them. Then trouble finds Grace as Stephanie's marriage ends in bloodshed, with Grace's e-mails key evidence for the trial. Worse, Stephanie may not be what she had claimed. Allen lays out her narrative in workmanlike prose, highlighted by touching family moments featuring Grace's daughter, Nicky, and ailing brother, Gus though stock secondary characters do little to enhance the story. Writing under the name of Bette Davis's character in Now, Voyager, Allen (Daddy's Girl, Parting Gifts, etc.) has long favored smart women who don't catch on as fast as the audience, strong women who struggle against denial, neglect, fear, anger and frustration. This novel boasts that kind of heroine, but the tale loses power toward the end as plot twists meant to increase dramatic intensity strain credibility.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Allen, the popular author of several works of contemporary fiction that often deal with incest, abuse, or other awful human behaviors, may be most familiar to readers for her book Daddy's Girl (1980), which detailed her own childhood and the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of her father. Here Allen tells the story of Grace Loring, a onetime victim of spousal abuse who is now a successful novelist. Despite still being haunted by her experiences, Grace often provides advice and counsel to those of her fans suffering domestic violence. She soon begins a personal correspondence via e-mail with a young woman who is suffering horrifying acts of abuse from her husband, which she describes to Grace in graphic detail. When the woman mysteriously stops writing, Grace fears the worst and begins an investigation that unearths more questions than answers. Despite its serious subject, Allen has written a gripping and diversionary read. Fans will enjoy the surprising plot twists and turns. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Mira; 1ST edition (May 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1551669064
• ISBN-13: 978-1551669069
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #5,935,455 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Charlotte Vale-Allen was born in Toronto and lived in England from 1961 to 1964 where she worked as a television actress and singer. She returned to Toronto briefly, performing as a singer until she emigrated to the US in 1966. She sold her first novel Love Life in 1974. Prior to this book's publication she contracted to do a series of paperback originals, with the result that in 1976 three of her books appeared in print. Her autobiography, the acclaimed Daddy's Girl, was actually the first book she wrote but it wasn't until 1980, after she'd gained success as a novelist, that the groundbreaking book was finally published. One of Canada's most successful novelists, with over seven million copies sold of her 39 books, Ms. Allen's work has been published in all English-speaking countries, in Braille, and have been translated into more than 20 languages. The mother of an adult daughter and grandmother of twins, since 1970 she has made her home in Connecticut.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another insightful effort, April 26, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Grace Notes (Hardcover)

What is most notable about this author's work is that no two of her books are the same. For that reason alone, I would buy any book of hers without bothering to read the flap copy or the reviews because I know that whatever she has chosen to write about it will have her unique insights and depth of feeling for the characters. Grace Notes is a cautionary tale about the ways in which the internet (email in particular) can be used--sometimes to great disadvantage. It's also a very truthful exploration of the tremendous demands of caregiving and of the long-term effects of domestic abuse. Several clever twists at the end were definitely not foreshadowed. All in all, a gripping and most satisfying reading experience.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Powerful Tale of a Woman With Too Much Heart, April 29, 2002

By 

John Shannon "John Shannon" (Culver City, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Grace Notes (Hardcover)

Ms. Allen's books are sometimes considered "women's novels," but I don't see why men shouldn't be interested in these powerful themes and the gripping way she depicts them.

Grace Loring is a compelling portrait of a woman who gives so much of herself that she never leaves quite enough for herself. A successful author, she has fled an abusive marriage to live with her sympathetic brother Gus, but she now finds herself nearly overwhelmed as a caretaker as Gus surrenders himself completely to a crippling and financially ruinous rheumatoid arthritis. Grace has little time for her bright 22-year-old daughter Nicky--a convincingly perky depiction--or for the achingly decent man Vinnie who has finally entered her life, or even for her own writing, but the costs and burdens of the disease drive her back to the computer. And into this already stressful mix falls yet another plea for help that Grace, of the tormented heart, simply cannot resist. E-mail arrives from a woman who claims she is the victim of brutal and unremitting abuse. Grace's heart goes out--even as the reader begins to worry more and more that this new correspondent may not be quite what she claims. Grace is almost willfully naïve and trusting and self-denying--which would, of course, be virtues in a better world (a world built by women, perhaps, as opposed to the one built by men where "realistic" souls try to hammer each other into submission.)

The tension becomes almost unbearable as all these crises come together at once for Grace--and the e-mail correspondent abruptly shows up in person. Like reporting on any powerful mystery, I cannot reveal any more about the story without spoiling it. But I can say the characters moved me, unnerved me with their flaws (human flaws, not writing flaws), and I desperately wanted to step in and help them out of their predicaments. I will remember them for a long time.

And finally, I detect more than a whiff of autobiography making its way into this story, both as abuse survivor and caretaker, and if I were an abused woman, I think I would immediately fly to Ms Allen's door and fall at her feet to worship her for writing so powerfully on a dark subject that deserves much more light thrown on it.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A very serious book..., June 26, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: Grace Notes (Stp - Mira) (Mass Market Paperback)

I didn't expect the book to be so serious and thought provoking. From the back cover it sounded like a mystery but in reality it was about the life of an abused woman who escaped and ended up taking care of her beloved crippled brother. I actually enjoyed the book very much and it taught me a lot and made me think. The ending was odd and a little abrupt but I'm glad it had a conclusion. I recommend this book to anyone who has had it rough.