Loving Donovan [Hardcover]

Bernice L. McFadden (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 27, 2003

The first section of this unconventional love story belongs to Campbell. Despite being born to a broken-hearted mother and a faithless father, Campbell still believes in the power of love...if she can ever find it. Living in the same neighborhood, but unknown to Campbell until a chance meeting brings them together, is Donovan, the "little man" of a shattered home-a family torn apart by anger and bitterness. In the face of these daunting obstacles, Donovan dreams of someday marrying, raising a family, and playing for the NBA. But, deep inside, Campbell and Donovan live with the histories that have shaped their lives. What they discover-together and apart-forms the basis of this compelling, sensual, and surprising novel.

A deeply thoughtful novel about hope, forgiveness, and the cost of loving Donovan, this is certain to be another bestseller from a supremely gifted author.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This bittersweet fourth novel by McFadden (Sugar) traces the lives of two damaged but resolute people destined for an ill-fated love affair. The reader meets protagonist Campbell as a sensitive eight-year-old living in a Brooklyn housing project. As she watches her mother weep and rant at her feckless, philandering father, Campbell promises herself that "ain't no man ever going to break my heart." At age 15, however, that promise is broken when she gets pregnant by a high school boyfriend who skips town. Donovan, meanwhile, also grows up listening to his parents' violent quarrels. When he's nine years old, he is assaulted by a pedophile in his building, an experience that impairs his future relationships with women. As an adult, he takes a city transit job and becomes a workaholic. The two meet when Campbell is a single mother in her 30s and a talented fledgling artist. She bumps into Donovan at an art show and promptly falls in love. But Donovan is threatened by Campbell's money and success. He brutally rejects her, leaving her to play out the scenes of bitter anguish she observed so often while growing up. McFadden's latest is heartfelt and competently written, with her usual flair for dialogue and well-paced narrative. Yet Campbell and Donovan respond predictably to their traumas, and Campbell is not as vivid as some of McFadden's earlier heroines. In spite of her worldly success, Campbell is an archetypal female victim, too thinly drawn to carry the melodramatic scenes of despair that cap the book.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

McFadden separately introduces Campbell and Donovan and their early lives of family tragedy and disappointment lived within the same gritty urban neighborhood. She ultimately brings these two wounded people together in a bittersweet story that shows the limitations of love and fate. Campbell is raised by a mother who has trapped her husband in a bitter and loveless marriage. Campbell gets her first lessons about longing and passion from the gay tenants who live in the apartment below, the sounds of their lovemaking and fighting drifting up through the vents. Teenaged motherhood from a hasty sexual encounter seems to seal Campbell's fate. Donovan is also the product of a troubled marriage--abandoned by his mother and raised by a father who is overly controlled by his overbearing mother. Donovan is introduced to sex by a charming hustler who lives in his grandmother's basement and seduces children. By the time Donovan and Campbell meet, they've both recovered enough to know what they want in an adult relationship, but have they healed enough to make it last? Vanessa Bush
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 226 pages
• Publisher: Dutton Adult; First Edition. states edition (January 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 052594706X
• ISBN-13: 978-0525947066
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (50 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,250,988 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I am mother, daughter, sister and friend. All I've ever wanted was to be happy. Writing makes me happy.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars My Heart Belongs To You, January 27, 2003

By 

The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loving Donovan (Hardcover)

Loving Donovan is the story of survival of the fittest while falling in love along the way. Campbell is a smart girl who was raised in a home with a heartbroken mother and a father who wouldn't know the meaning of being faithful if it bit him in the face. In spite of her parents example, Campbell still believes in the power of love. She has her share of men friends but has yet to meet that special someone to knock her off her feet, that is until she meets Donovan.

Donovan is also from a broken home. His mother is too busy running the streets to be a mother to him and his father is busy working and checking up on his mother. His parents' relationship ends bitterly, leaving Donovan and his father to go to live with his grandmother. As a child, Donovan endures one of the worst forms of abuse and it affects the adult he becomes. Regardless of the obstacles that come his way, Donovan still one day dreams of marrying and possibly playing in the NBA. His relationships never last more than a few months because he is deeply affected by his past. He doesn't think he will ever be able to love a woman fully until he meets Campbell.

Although Donovan and Campbell grew up not too far from one another, a chance meeting brings them together as adults. Can two people in love look beyond their unhappy pasts and have a future filled with happiness? Or will the past continue to haunt them and block their blessings of love?

Bernice McFadden has done it again, Loving Donovan is yet another excellent novel. From the first page to the surprise ending, this is a book you CAN NOT put down.

Reviewed by Eraina B. Tinnin
The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars McFadden is still a favorite, April 1, 2003

By 

"theewrt1" (Twingsburg, ohio USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Loving Donovan (Hardcover)

I have read all three of Mcfadden's prior novels. This is a very talented sister with three dimentional well told stories that I usually finish over the course of a weekend. Needless to say I was looking forward to "Donovan". Much to my surprise I found the novel mildly interesting with a rushed ending. I really wanted to feel for campbell at the end of her break down. Especially when the story begins by letting you know that this is about a love gone wrong and even in the present donovan is still thought of. I felt a little let down. Alot of time was spent on the character's upbringings. But their time spent together seems too much like two ships passing in the night. It wasnt the love supreme it lead up to be. Mcfadden has a real talent for creating strong female characters who's past are heart felt. I highly recommend her debut "Sugar"

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Unforgetable Love...Unforgetable Story!!, February 24, 2003

By 

Priscilla C. Johnson "bookmaniac" (Baltimore, Maryland USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Loving Donovan (Hardcover)

If you have never read anything by Bernice L. McFadden, Shame on you!! You have to pick up a copy of Loving Donovan.

Have you ever wondered what ever happen to that first first love? No matter what time of day, week, year, or hour, just the thought of that person sends goose bumps up your spine. This is the type of love that is shared by Campbell and Donovan. Before the reader can actually find out about this incredable love, you have to know who they are and how they came to be.

McFadden introduces the reader to each character in chapters perfectly named "Her" and "Him". In each chapter, you discover a young Campbell and Donovan and their desparate desire for approval, acceptance and love. Each has been been damaged in some way. Yet, unknowingly, they are present when each has been violated. Campbell and Donovan struggle throughtout the book to find themself and each other. In the chapter named "Them" Campble and Donovan come together and share a love that is so true. But because of their past they can never come together.

McFadden will make you laugh, cry, get angry, and love. Her writing is poetic, simplistic and speaks to the reader through her acuate visual images. You will also remember the love that you let get by and wonder in the same manner as Campbell in the prologue ... Would I .. Could I .... leave for that same love all over again??

Peace and Blessings!!