Love Walked In [Hardcover]

Marisa de los Santos (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: December 29, 2005

A tribute to classic film and true romance, LOVE WALKED IN tells the story of two women – one older, one younger – and the unexpected ways in which their lives are forever changed by chance.

For thirty-one-year old Cornelia Brown, life is a series of movie moments, and “Jimmy Stewart is always and indisputably the best man in the world, unless Cary Grant should happen to show up.” So imagine Cornelia’s delight when her very own Cary Grant walks through the door of the hip Philadelphia café she manages. Handsome and debonair, Martin Grace sweeps Cornelia off her feet, becoming Cary Grant to Cornelia’s Katharine Hepburn, Clark Gable to her Joan Crawford. Meanwhile, on the other side of town, eleven-year-old Clare Hobbes must learn to fend for herself after her increasingly unstable mother has a breakdown and disappears. With no one to turn to, Clare seeks out her estranged father, and when the two of them show up at Cornelia’s café, the lives of Cornelia and Clare are changed in drastic and unexpected ways. A cinematic and heartfelt debut that pays homage to the classic Cary Grant/Katharine Hepburn romantic comedy The Philadelphia Story, Love Walked In is sure to win over critics and readers of contemporary fiction.

"A touching, triumphant story of the power and variety and responsibility of love. A joy to read, filled with characters you wish you knew in real life. Love Walked In is every bit as engaging as the classic movies Marisa de los Santos lovingly invokes."
--Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club

"An impossibly warm, acute, romantic spree, with room in its heart for all of us. Marisa de los Santos offers us two fine young heroines, Cornelia and Clare, and she trains a rich, brimming, silver screen light on their sorrows and elations. Since Love Walked In borrows so magically from the spirit of a certain Frank Capra film, I'll second the motion: It's A Wonderful Novel."
--David Schickler, author of Sweet and Vicious and Kissing in Manahattan

“Love Walked In is a brilliant novel—beautiful, hilarious, rich in detail and cultural commentary. While an expose of our desires for old world romance, elegant leading men, and the perfect shoes, this novel is also a bone-deep examination of inner lives, the bonds between women, and the prospects of borderline madness.”
--Julianna Baggott, author of Girl Talk, The Miss America Family and The Madam

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Philadelphia cafe manager Cornelia Brown drifts effortlessly through her unattached life, unapologetic for idealizing romance and breathlessly recommending The Philadelphia Story—to the reader and everyone else. Eleven-year-old Clare is a child of divorce whose mother, a successful party planner, is quickly going to pieces. In alternating chapters of Cornelia's first person and Clare's free and direct third, poet de los Santos, making her novel debut, tells the story of their finding each other. That Cornelia, early on, immediately falls for Cary Grant doppelgänger Martin Grace is no surprise; his relation to Clare, revealed a third of the way in, isn't really either. As she discovers maternal instincts she wasn't sure she had, Cornelia works up the courage to face her own feelings for Clare with honesty. As Martin exits, Cornelia's childhood friend Teo enters, but neither makes much impact, and Clare's rather serious issues get reduced to Clare-did-this, Clare-thought-that episodes. The two main characters exist for one purpose: to enact a cross-generational, strong-but-vulnerable-and-loving, screenplay-ready femininity. Chick lit? You bet: with rights sold in at least eight countries, and, indeed, to Paramount—Sarah Jessica Parker will star and coproduce with Sideways's Michael London. The book is fine, but for this property, it's a case of waiting for Carrie to walk in. (Jan.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

Cornelia is a single thirtysomething who lives her life like a series of movie moments. She's a manager of a cafe because she hasn't figured out anything better to do. Her ideal man is Cary Grant. And just when she thinks he'll never show up, he does, in the form of Martin Grace. What she doesn't know is that Martin, with his cool charm and debonair demeanor, has a daughter, Clare. And she never would have known that except that Martin, in a state of panic, shows up with the girl at the cafe after her mother had a breakdown and left Clare to fend for herself. Estranged from his daughter for years, Martin doesn't know what to do with her. Both women's stories are told in alternating chapters, Cornelia's in first person, Clare's in third. This is a first novel with some wonderful and heartbreaking moments scattered throughout, along with some moments that are purely contrived for the forward movement of the plot. Overall, it is a sweet story about knowing what you love and why. Carolyn Kubisz
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 320 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult (December 29, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0525949178
• ISBN-13: 978-0525949176
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (178 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #218,140 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I became a writer because I love the sound and texture of words (current favorite consonant sounds: Ls and hard Cs) and love to hear what happens when they bump up against each other. I was a poet for a long time (my first book is a collection of poetry called FROM THE BONES OUT), and then, one day, unexpectedly, I found that I had a voice inside my head. As you might imagine, this was a bit alarming. However, in time, I discovered that the voice belonged to a character named Cornelia Brown, so I wrote a novel called LOVE WALKED IN about her and an eleven-year old girl named Clare. After that, I became addicted to writing novels. I wrote a second one called BELONG TO ME, and my third, FALLING TOGETHER, came out on October 4th, 2011. I'm now working on a fourth, tentatively titled THE PRECIOUS ONE. I live with my husband, children's book author David Teague, and our two kids, Charles and Annabel, in lovely Wilmington, Delaware, home of Vice President Biden and tax-free shopping.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

42 of 47 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars I love this book, January 2, 2006

By 

Susan Davis "the blind eve" (Chapel Hill, North Carolina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Love Walked In (Hardcover)

As a writer, reader, lover of all things literary AND popular, I've waited a long, long, long time for a novel like this one. Cornelia and Clare and their intersecting narratives manage to blend the quick wit and charm of the classic movies Cornelia loves with the heartbreak and family dysfunction of our very real times. And Cornelia is someone I want to know, someone I do know, someone who reminds me a bit of myself and of every other smart woman who loves a great book AND a great pair of shoes, who understands that love is the most important thing, but that laughing helps, as does a room with an excellent view and a place to come home to that truly feels like home. This is the best book for our generation. I loved it. Read it and you'll love it too.

23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Touching and off-beat love story...but was thrown off by the contrived dialogue...., April 29, 2008

By 

Frank N. Beans (New England) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Walked In (Mass Market Paperback)

"Love Walked In" is not your typical love story. Cornelia is a 30-something, well-educated woman who works in a Philadelphia coffee shop (the type of coffee shop where artists and academics lounge around, playing chess and engaging in witty repartee all day). Cornelia is a petite, peppy, hopeless romantic who is anxiously awaiting a Cary Grant-type to walk in the door and sweep her off her tiny feet. That moment does in fact happen when handsome, charismatic Martin Grace breezes in the door and leaves Cornelia feeling more than breathless.

Cornelia and Martin embark on a whirlwind romance and Martin seems to be everything that Cornelia is looking for in a man, until he shows up one day at the coffee shop with his young daughter whom he neglected to ever mention. It quickly becomes evident to Cornelia that Clare has no fuzzy feelings for her dapper dad due to his serious apathy for fatherhood. Cornelia soon begins to see that Martin may not be the man of her dreams...

Clare's glamorous mother, Viviana, abandons Clare and Martin and Cornelia are left to tend to her broken heart. Cornelia becomes Clare's main care-taker and the two develop a deep attachment for one another. The relationship between Clare and Cornelia is the main focus of the novel and their story is told from both points of view.

I did enjoy the novel because it's a nice story and it is an easy, relaxing read. However, I was completely thrown off by what I felt was often forced dialogue and a few very unbelievable characters. For example, the author wanted to convey that Cornelia is a huge classic movie fan (which ties into her being a romantic) but the manner in which she chose to do this did not work very well, in my opinion. It just seemed very unnatural and contrived and, on more than one occasion, I found myself thinking, "real people do not talk or think this way!" I felt the same way about Cornelia's friend "Linney" who seemed one-dimensional and more like a caricature than a real person.

On the other hand, I thought Ms. de los Santos did a nice job developing the characters of Clare and Viviana and I was able to feel a connection with both.

So, in the end, I'd say my feelings in regard to this novel are mixed. I do not regret reading it and am happy to recommend it to others, however, I was disappointed that the above-mentioned flaws (or what I consider to be flaws) detracted from what was an otherwise good story.

35 of 40 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What Breaks Your Heart?, January 9, 2006

By 

CloseReader - See all my reviews

This review is from: Love Walked In (Hardcover)

I don't know what makes a love story feel right. Not many of them do. But this one feels as right as breathing. It's funny and peculiar and brave. And it's written in language so musical and metaphorical, the author could've been a poet. As, according to her biography, she is.

In the book, Cornelia Brown, the main character, asks: "What breaks your heart? Has your heart been broken? Tell me. When has your heart been broken?" She asks twice. The first time, she asks her lover. When she repeats the questions, though, it's as if she's asking the reader. This flourish is how the author signals that, for all her shortcomings, Cornelia is growing bolder. She's realized that before you can love anybody truly, your heart has to be broken, and you have to own that memory completely.

What made "Love Walked In" different, though, wasn't just the writing. It was the love story between Cornelia and Clare.

Cornelia is 31 and she's pretty aimless, although nobody seems to mind, because she's so witty and hilarious. She manages a trendy coffee shop in Philadelphia and has smart, interesting friends, and she's really amusing when she's around them (and a little mean, which always helps the humor). But she's not very courageous, even though she wants to be. And she's lonely.

Clare, the other main character, is 11, and she's incredibly courageous, but what's happening to her is so terrifying, it's hard to tell if she'll make it. Her father is out of the picture, and her mother is suffering a manic break. So Clare is worse than on her own--she's on her own and singlehandedly trying to keep her whole world from deteriorating, literally, into madness. And she's failing.

It's hard to see how anybody could help Clare out of her trouble, much less directionless Cornelia. But that's where the love of "Love Walked In" comes in. When Cornelia and Clare find each other, their love for one another transforms them. They become brave, remarkable characters who will linger in memory for a long, long, time.