On Mystic Lake: A Novel (Ballantine Reader's Circle) [Paperback]

Kristin Hannah (Author)

Book Description

Series: Ballantine Reader's Circle | Publication Date: April 27, 2004

Annie Colwater’s husband has just confessed that he’s in love with a younger woman. Devastated, Annie retreats to the small town where she grew up. There, she is reunited with her first love, Nick Delacroix, a recent widower who is unable to cope with his silent, emotionally scarred young daughter. Together, the three of them begin to heal. But just when Annie believes she’s been given a second chance at happiness, her world is turned upside down again, and she is forced to make a choice that no woman in love should ever have to make.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What do you do when everything you hold dear, everything you believe yourself to be, proves not to be true? Like Scarlett O'Hara, you go home, if not to Tara, then to the last place that you felt like you. Award-winning author Kristin Hannah makes her hardcover debut by taking readers to just such a place in On Mystic Lake. As her only child leaves to study abroad and her husband admits his love for a younger woman, Annie Colwater feels invisible. Having devoted herself to being the best wife and mother she could be for the last 20 years, Annie no longer knows who she is. She heads home to her father and to Mystic, Washington--where she grew up, where the dreams she barely remembers first blossomed, and where her first love, Nick Delacroix, still lives. Back in Mystic, Annie receives a healthy dose of perspective: Nick's wife has recently committed suicide, leaving Nick to find solace in the bottom of a Scotch bottle while his 6-year-old daughter, Izzie--who hasn't spoken since her mother's death--is doing her best to "disappear" just like Mommy. Annie volunteers to care for Izzie, since Nick cannot understand what his grieving daughter needs. And in the process, Annie recovers herself, the woman she thought gone forever, while Nick realizes that his future lies with Annie and Izzie. Just when the future starts to look bright for the three, Annie is faced with a devastating choice between the life she thought had left her behind, and a new beginning with Nick and Izzie, who helped to unearth her forgotten dreams. Kristin Hannah has produced a treasure of a book, one that will make you cry and will strike a chord in anyone who has ever had to pick up the pieces and start over. --Alison Trinkle --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In her first hardcover after a distinguished career in paperback romance (Home Again), Hannah shows what it takes for an author to make that defining leap. Never one to gush, she is more than ever disciplined in her writing, and the result is a clean, deep thrust into the reader's heart. Annie Colwater knows she's in for a spell of loneliness when her 17-year-old daughter, Natalie, leaves Southern California for a summer in London, but the teary airport farewell is just the beginning of a chaotic time. Blake, Annie's husband, tells her that he wants a divorce so he can start a new life with his sweetheart, a young partner in his law firm. Blake's a cad?a habitual philanderer, and the sort of father who forgets birthdays?but we don't totally blame him for bailing out. Annie is Natalie's doting mother, Blake's dutiful wife and otherwise barely there. In search of the self she must find to survive, Annie goes back to Mystic, Wash., and the home of her father, gruffly loving Hank Borne, who did his best to raise her after the early death of her mother. Maternal loss is a terrain Hannah seems to know to a harrowing fare-thee-well. Annie's redemption begins with her profound kindness to six-year-old Isabella Delacroix, whose mother, Kathy?once Annie's best friend?has recently died. A romance with alcoholic cop Nick, Isabella's father, unfolds tenderly and with suspense, for all its inevitability. When Annie discovers she is pregnant with Blake's child, and then gives birth prematurely to a tiny girl who may not survive, the phrase "page-turner" is redefined. In Hannah's world, nothing can be taken for granted and triumph must be earned, with hard work, truthful reckoning and tears. 100,000 first printing; first serial to Good Housekeeping; Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selections; film rights optioned by Hearst Entertainment; rights sold in the U.K., Germany, France, Sweden and China.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 448 pages
• Publisher: Ballantine Books (April 27, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0345471172
• ISBN-13: 978-0345471178
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.9 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (137 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #20,170 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kristin Hannah was born in September 1960 in Southern California and grew up at the beach, making sand castles and playing in the surf. When she was eight years old, her father drove the family to Western Washington which they called home.

After working in a trendy advertising agency, Kristin decided to go to law school. "But you're going to be a writer" are the prophetic words she would never forget from her mother. Kristin was in her third-and final-year of law school and her mom was in the hospital, facing the end of her long battle with cancer. Kristin was shocked to discover that her mother believed she would become a writer. For the next few months, they collaborated on the worst, most clichéd historical romance ever written.

After her mom's death, she packed up all those bits and pieces of paper they'd collected and put them in a box in the back of her closet. Kristin got married and continued practicing law.

Then Kristin found out she was pregnant and was on bed rest for five months. By the time she'd read every book in the house and started asking her husband for cereal boxes to read, she knew she was a goner. That's when her husband reminded her of the book she'd started with her mom. Kristin pulled out the boxes of research material, dusted them off and began writing. By the time their son was born, she'd finished a first draft and found an obsession.

The rejections came, of course, and they stung for a while, but each one really just spurred her to try harder, work more. In 1990, Kristin got "the call," and in that moment, she went from a young mother with a cooler-than-average hobby to a professional writer, and has never looked back. In all the years between then and now, she have never lost her love of, or her enthusiasm for, telling stories. Kristin feels truly blessed to be a wife, a mother, and a writer.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 29 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a Story!, December 31, 2002

By 

TJ's Mommy (El Dorado Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Mystic Lake (Mass Market Paperback)

Kristin Hannah has done it again. She is a master of taking the reader to beautiful places with interesting and often complex characters. Annie returns home to Mystic Lake after her husband of 20 years tells her that he wants a divorce because he's in love with another woman. Annie is a nurturer and is always there to take care of others, but in the meantime she has lost herself. During her stay in Mystic Lake she comes to know true love, finds out about herself, and helps a little girl who has lost her mommy understand that "it's going to be okay." The little girl, Izzy, will capture your heart and make you laugh and cry. Hannah keeps you waiting until the bitter end...the last few pages...to see how things tie up and if the ending will be happy. This book will not disappoint you.

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Absolutely terrific!, June 3, 2001

By 

Kelly - See all my reviews

This review is from: On Mystic Lake (Mass Market Paperback)

You don't know what you're missing if you've never read a book by Kristin Hannah, and _On Mystic Lake_ is one of the absolute best books ever written. The characters come alive and endear themselves to your heart. Annie is down to earth and easy to read about. Izzie, the little girl who needs to find her way into the world again is precious and Nick is the type of character whom you wish you could jump into the book and give a hug to. _On Mystic Lake_ is by no means "lite reading". The main character, Annie, is getting a divorce from her husband who claims to love another woman. Trying to come to grips with her failing marriage, Annie returns home to Mystic to spend some time with her father. There she meets up with her first love, Nick, who chose her best friend over her, breaking Annie's heart. It turns out that Nick's wife (Annie's old best friend) has died leaving Nick and his daughter Izzie devestated. When the three first get together, it's sort of like the blind leading the blind. They are all so hurt that it is hard to see who needs more help. But, Annie brings healing to Izzie's soul, the little girl mends Annie's heart, and a love rekindles between Nick and Annie. Still, things are not that easy, and a conflict makes the world harder in Mystic. Kristin Hannah is an amazingly gifted author and her talent shines in _On Mystic Lake_. Her descriptive writing will take you to another place- a little logging town in Washington where mist floats above the ground and life moves at a slower pace. This is a beautiful book about three healing souls who learn that bad things do happen but you can get around them. I'd recomend _On Mystic Lake_ to anyone who enjoys putting down a book with a sense that the world is a wonderful place and they can do something to make it better.

15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable book , that you will not want to put down!, May 12, 1999

By 

Allison R. King "Allisons Attic" (Hollister, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: On Mystic Lake (Hardcover)

This is the first book of Kristin Hannah's that I've read and it won't be the last. Her story of Annie Colwater is so realistic in this day and age of the modern woman. After the initial heartbreak, she tries to find who she truly is after so many years of acting the part she thought she was suppose to be for her husband. I'm glad the book doesn't go to the extreme of 'blaming' the husband for the whole situation and instead has Annie discover for herself the direction she needs to take with her life. If you want an enjoyable reading with a little heartbreak, a few tears, and some strong emotions, you must read this book.