14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Another Cassandra King triumph of the heart -- and for the reader!, March 10, 2007
This review is from: Queen of Broken Hearts (Hardcover)
I would imagine that Cassandra King is delicate but tough, kind yet strong, generous yet committed, and a beautiful person and a fine writer. This is not prescience. . .this is fact which exudes from the pages of her latest novel, Queen of Broken Hearts. As I write this I feel guilty since I haven't totally finished the book yet, but I couldn't wait to write this review either. For anyone wondering how to spend a weekend or a luscious few hours a night for the week, buy this book. I was an English professor for over twenty years, I am a professional writer myself, and I know good fiction; yet, I could not have anticipated the siren-call of this intoxicating book. It is hypnotic and alluring, clever and subtle, and totally captivating. I work too hard, as do many of us. I rarely take an entire weekend just to read fiction that is not work-related. This is a rare treat for me. Cassandra King has not let me down with this book.
I LOVE Queen of Broken Hearts. I cannot put it down, but I can't read it too fast, either, as the characters are now becoming entwined in the fabric of my own life, and I am not ready to release them. Yet, today, I sat with this book on my lap, coffee by my side, flannel nightie tucked down around my feet like a sleeping bag. . . husband at bay in his library, the dog at my feet, and I felt just like a Norman Rockwell painting; but then something happened. I dozed off and found that my dreams were populated with Cassandra King's characters. I dreamed of Lex and Clare and wondered if Dory were feeling better or if her husband Son had tormented her some more. I found myself dreaming about Clare's dead husband Mack and seeing him in front of me. When I awoke, I had a feeling of disorientation that has only ever happened to me two other times: when I read The Great Santini and Lords of Discipline by Pat Conroy, King's real life husband.
I am completely enthralled by this book and find myself thinking about the characters when awake or asleep, obviously! Cassandra King can draw her characters with a richness of canvas that evokes the passion of Impressionistic painters and the precision of the Realistic genre: emotions, motivation, desires so clearly emerge from King's characters that the palette of their life experiences blazes onto each page in full living color, creating at times a stroke so strong that a bas relief occurs, indelibly etching into the heart of the reader the angst, pain, joy, and triumph of each "new friend."
King's style is generally not overly lush, but still dances more to the Fitzgerald side than to that of Hemingway; but it is a unique and lovely style of its own that enlivens the characters, the setting, and the plot with a special texture all Southern yet at the same time universal in its portrayal. Events spring from the pages until they are so real that the reader feels not as if she is following a fictitious story, but that, instead, the characters are standing, like Dory, all smiley and lovely, waving her in until she is invited to join that special inner circle created in the pages. I am most impressed.
Some of my favorite lines are: "Never, ever assume that things can't get worse" (18); "For one thing, it's beautiful, as he was. Not many pictures ever caught that dreamy, faraway look of his, a look that set him apart from any man I've ever known, before or since. It's a fairly dark photo, taken at night in a room lit by candles, and each of us is illuminated by the yellow flash of the camera in a strange sort of way. It makes us look ghostly, unreal, frozen in the moment. It's as though I'm looking at dead people who lived years ago, people I don't know, long dead. It's a ridiculous and fanciful notion. . ." (32); "'Issues,' Lex snorts. 'God, I hate that world. It's so self-indulgent'" (33); "It was that soft pearl-gray time when the sun has retired but dusk hasn't yet pulled up the covers of the night" (116); "Stunned, I moved toward him blindly and instinctively, my hands reaching for him like a drowning person might reach for a life preserver. Moving quickly, Mack pulled me closer against him and all he said was 'Clare. . .oh, my God.' With that, I was lost. The fears, the inhibitions, the uncertainties left me. Like the car top, they folded in on themselves, disappearing from my sight and allowing the crystal beauty of the night sky to shine down on us" (118).
WHEW! I would continue with this review, but I have to get back to Fairhope . . .
Cheryl Roberts, Ph.D.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Charming, Lovely Southern Tale, March 23, 2007
This review is from: Queen of Broken Hearts (Hardcover)
Nobody writes quite like a Southerner...when at their best, as is Cassandra King in this lovely tale, their words flow like honey and molasses, and you can become transported to a slower way of life, the heat of a steaming Southern Day, and the lull of polite hospitality.
All of that is present in this wonderful tale of Alabama therapist Clare, mother of one adult daughter, grandmother of two, and, in her late 40s, early widow. Clare specialized in inter- and post-divorce private and group sessions, and has become somewhat renowned for her "asunder" ceremonies, which mark the end of a divorced person's successful healing.
But Clare has deep problems of her own, which she refuses to acknowledge in her need to be strong for everyone around her: daughter Halley, whose marriage is becoming disturbingly rocky; dearest friend Dory, whose tempestuous on-again, off-again marriage with Son (now THERE'S a Southern name!) is taking its toll; cousin-by-marriage Rye, whose unrequited love for her Clare continues to ignore; sexy divorced Yankee Lex, who could easily become more than the dear friend he is; and her mother-in-law, the irrascible, one-of-a-kind Zoe Catherine, whose bird sanctuary is the talk of the town.
Can Clare continue to give, give give without anything coming back to nourish her own soul? And more importantly, will she ALLOW anybody to provide that nourishment?
That question remains at the heart of this achingly wonderful novel, which I highly recommend to anyone who loves Dorothea Benton Frank, Anne Rivers Siddons and so many other of our valued and special Southern women writers.
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Bonds of friendship, March 19, 2007
This review is from: Queen of Broken Hearts (Hardcover)
Characters are pretty numerous but not so many we can't keep up with them. Clare, the main character is a divorce therapist who lost her husband in a tragic accident. Dory (short for Isadore) is her best friend; Dory's husband Son Rogers is wealthy and is not Clare's best friend. Haley is Clare's daughter, whose husband Austin is a real jerk. Two men are romantically interested in Clare: Lex, a Yankee from Maine who owns a marina; and Rye, who is old Fairhope and a close friend of Clare's dead husband Mack. Add to this a few honest-to-goodness characters like the bird lady/mother-in-law and her strange old boyfriend Cooter and you have a colorful crowd of believable characters.
The plot of the novel belongs to the three women, Clare, Dory, and Haley--their actions, relationships (especially with each other), their reactions move the chain of events in very Southern ways. Ways, we may know something about: manipulation, mysteriousness, emotional highs and lows, and amazing courage and sensitivity.
This is a wonderful novel whose theme seems to be importance of seeing life as a journey with its crossroads; however, I prefer to think its biggest message is the strength of friendship between women.
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