The Prodigal Wife: A Novel [Hardcover]

Marcia Willett (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 5, 2010

“Deservedly compared to her countrywomen, Binchy and Pilcher, Willett is an equally gifted storyteller.”—Booklist

In Marcia Willett’s latest novel, Jolyon, who had been abandoned by his mother, Maria, is living at the Keep with his father and his stepmother Fliss. Now that Jolyon is a successful television presenter of gardening programs, the recently widowed Maria, lonely and impressed by her son’s fame, reappears and hopes to step back into his life. But Jolyon finds it difficult to trust his mother and forgive the hurt she had inflicted on him.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this gentle, charming novel of indiscretion, grudges, love and mortality, two middle-aged couples reunite late in life following long separation and marriages to others. As the children of these first marriages fall in love, they draw everyone together again, including a couple of trouble-making ex-spouses. With so much deferred love-involving infidelity, divorce, traumatized kids, wasted years, and more-there is much to be emotional about, and the latest from British novelist Willett (The Way We Were) is chiefly engaged in rehashing these feelings endlessly. For all the introspection, however, there is a lack of nuance-characters' emotional self-exploration is more prolific than profound. Still, a generally likable cast outweighs their emotional transparency, and the plot clicks along with pleasant, cathartic rhythms and an intriguing mystery subplot.
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From Booklist

The institutions of marriage and family come under particularly keen scrutiny in Willett’s reliably tender hands even as she casts an uncharacteristically harsh light on the adult children of a close-knit group of friends, a generation still reeling from the aftereffects of parental divorces that took place years earlier. Enjoying newfound celebrity as the host of a popular television show, Jolyon Chadwick finds the glow of his success quickly tarnished when it brings the unwelcome attention of his estranged mother, Maria. Jolyon has long resented the way she abandoned him when she divorced his father to marry her lover, and he has little sympathy for her now that she is a recent widow at loose ends. Likewise, Henrietta bears thinly veiled animosity toward her mother, successful journalist Cordelia Lytton, as she continues to blame her for the affair that ended her parents’ marriage and caused her father to unceremoniously walk out of her life forever. Willett’s hopeful messages of contrition and redemption frequently are obscured by an overly complicated labyrinth of internecine strife. --Carol Haggas

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books; First Edition edition (January 5, 2010)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312605307
• ISBN-13: 978-0312605308
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.7 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #738,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Fourth Book of the Treasured Chadwick Family Chronicles, March 4, 2011

By 

T. L. Eaton - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Prodigal Wife: A Novel (Paperback)

The Prodigal Wife is weaker than the other books in the series (not as long, rehashes previous plots), but if you loved the first three, you'll enjoy this fourth offering, as well. I love Marcia Willet's writing, so even her weaker efforts are worth more to me than the majority of fiction books being published these days.

If you haven't read the previous Chadwick Family Chronicles, you owe it to yourself to read those first!

I had Marcia Willet's Chadwick Family Chronicles on my list of books to order for a long time, and finally treated myself to the entire four books. Oh what a delight! I never would have waited so long had I known how good they were --my only disappointment was when they had ended.

I read all the time, but only rarely run across books that make me think about the characters long after I've finished the books. I grew to know and love the Chadwick family! This is Marcia Willet at her best. She is often advertised as writing in the tradition of Rosamunde Pilcher (another of my favorite writers), but she is a gifted writer who deserves her own recognition.

Here is the order of the series and the publishing dates:

1. Looking Forward (1998)

2. Holding on (1999)

3. Winning Through (2000)

4. The Prodigal Wife (2009)

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Chadwicks are back, March 16, 2010

By 

Patricia Kay "author and avid reader" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Prodigal Wife: A Novel (Hardcover)

Honestly, I don't care that Willett head hops constantly (even to the point of giving us the dogs' point of view), I don't care that the book is highly introspective, that she rehashes, pretty much verbatim, scenes from the first three books in the Chadwick Chronicles, nor do I care that sometimes her plots are thin. The thing is, Marcia Willett gives us characters to love. From page one, we feel an emotional connection to them, and we CARE. I could no more put one of Willett's books down than stop breathing. She is a marvelous writer whose characters live and breathe on the pages, and I feel I am there with them, experiencing everything they are experiencing. Even if all she gave us were her exceptional descriptions of English country life, her books would be worth the money you pay, but she gives us so much more. It was absolutely wonderful to revisit The Keep and to catch up with Hal, Fliss, Jolyon, and the others. Now that I have, I want to go back and re-read the first three books in this series. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Chadwick Family Returns in Fourth Installment of Series, February 22, 2010

By 

Antoinette Klein (Hoover, Alabama USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Prodigal Wife: A Novel (Hardcover)

The extended Chadwick Family we first met in Looking Forward, Holding On, and Winning Through is back in this fourth installment. Although Fliss, Hal, and Prue are prominent, new characters come into play to show that sometimes the Chadwicks do move outside the family and off the grounds of The Keep, the ancestral home that has been a safe haven for generations.

Jolyon, the young boy hungry for his mother's love, is now a grown man and has seemingly moved past his abandonment. Now a famous TV star with his own gardening show, he is thrown off course when his mother, Maria, decides it is time for her to make up for past wrongs. Jolyon also meets Henrietta, a young woman with whom he falls in love. Her view of marriage is as skewed as Jolyon's because of her mother's infidelity and her father's abandonment. Can two such emotionally damaged souls heal?

Henrietta's mother, Cordelia, also is a major character in this story. A suspenseful stalking story involving her seems intriguing, but falters badly. In addition, we don't see enough of Suzanne, Gus, and their family. However, the feel-good atmosphere that always surrounds the Chadwicks is here in full force and readers will rejoice as the family exchanges Christmas presents and the curtain closes on a fairy-tale ending.