Customer Reviews

The Richest Season

5 star:		(26)
4 star:		(15)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Rebeccasreads recommends THE RICHEST SEASON as an engrossing read written from three points of view -- Joanna, Grace & Paul - as each struggles with loss, death, love & their sense of worth.

Joanna has been the perfect corporate wife & mother whose nest not only is empty -- her daughter is living in Colorado & her son is away at college in Montana -- her husband, Paul, has just become a VP of his company & is going to have to relocate, again. She's lost count of the houses they've lived in.

Out running one morning in the New Jersey estate, it's all become too much. Joanna dreads the thought of moving, she misses her children & she's furious that the man she married has vanished.

As she runs the thought keeps coming up -- just run away from it all & go find a life. & so she does, packing some stuff into her Jeep & heading south to a place remembered from one of her family's vacation years ago -- an island on the South Carolina coast.

There she meets Grace, who lives in a house built on the beach, who needs a live-in assistant & a six month commitment.

When Paul finally locates his errant wife, their reunion goes awry as the fear & resentment overwhelms them. He goes back to the only constant in his life -- his work -- & when that is suddenly pulled out from under his feet, he's cast adrift & doesn't know what to do, so he buys a van & heads west to visit his daughter & son, & maybe find out what to do next.

THE RICHEST REASON is a richly told coming of age story that will give reading groups much to think about.

I don't know if it was the cover, but I wasn't expecting this to be as well written or developed as it is. Expecting this might be a light weight beach read, I was pleasantly surprised to find very well developed characters, excellent descriptive imagery, and wonderfully intertwined stories of the three main characters. The Richest Season is a cut above most popular fiction, yet it's also very readable and entertaining. This is a terrific balance of serious writing and an engrossing story. Highly recommended!

Joanna has decided before that she is tired of being a corporate wife, but after her husband receives yet another promotion requiring yet another move, she has had enough and sets off to find a life of her own. She arrives in Pawleys Island confused and in need of guidance. What she finds is an old woman named Grace with some difficulties of her own and a small community that is destined to change the way Joanna thinks. Meanwhile, her husband, Paul, only realizes after his life collapses that some serious changes need to be made. In this way, two lives are rebuilt.

I really, really enjoyed this book. I loved the atmosphere of it, particularly the feel of the island. I was walking along the sand with Joanna, looking out Grace's window, and smelling the salty sea air. McFadden creates a great sense of atmosphere here that I really appreciated. I was consistently immersed in the story and found myself thinking about it even when I hadn't been reading for a while.

I found it particularly amusing that the NJ town mentioned in the book is my hometown, where my parents live. Typically, the author had the attitude of this place down, but I couldn't reconcile any of the physical details with what she said, so I think she made up the developments and the things like the annual outdoor market, unless I have just been missing out on them for the past 15 years. Not only that, but one of the local bookstore owners where I used to buy my books for school is quoted on the back of my ARC copy. I'm astounded that this little town in the middle of nowhere has now appeared in a book that I have read!

As for the plot, I was never bored and I was moved very, very often. This one is certainly an emotional read. I loved watching Paul and Joanna find themselves, and Grace's story affected me deeply. I think we can see a little of ourselves in each character - we are all sometimes lost and confused, we all have to figure out who we are (sooner or later) in order to love ourselves and those around us, and almost everyone has known and probably loved someone whose situation is very similar to Grace's. Some readers are there themselves, which is heartbreaking. I felt connected and sympathetic to all three of the main characters and I wanted desperately for their wishes to come true.

This is an extremely touching story. I would certainly recommend it to anyone who was ready to embrace such a heart-rending and simultaneously heart-warming book.

Joanna is a lonely housewife. Her husband is always traveling

for his job, and her children are grown and have moved away. Suddenly she realizes that no one needs her anymore and would they even miss her if she left? She does just that, and takes off for Pawley's Island, South Carolina. While there, Joanna spends most of her time walking the beach and thinking over her life. She meets Grace, an elderly lady who needs a live in caretaker. Joanna agrees to take the job. She doesn't realize their relationship will come to be so much more than caretaker and patient.

Grace is an elderly lady hiding from the world with secrets she refuses to tell. She lost her husband Frank a few years ago to cancer and wants nothing more to do than hide from her past. Until Joanna no one knew about her dreams of wanting to paint. It was an ambition, as a young mother she put it aside to take care of her family.

As Grace and Joanna live each day regretting past mistakes, they

forge ahead making new friends. Both learn to let go of the past and

hold onto the unforeseeable future. They grow closer and learn to

forgive themselves and their decisions, past and present.

Paul is Joanna's husband; he tries to make her come home, but soon

realizes that she's made a new life for herself. He never listened

to her and her wants. All he thought about was making more money.

Now that he's lost his job he has to learn to live again, alone. He

tries to build a bridge to connect him to Joanna, but he fails. Paul

soon realizes that he loves working in the yard, and working with

wood. Can he make a living doing these things or does having a real

job make him more of a man? When it comes time to sell the house

he's lost. He tries one last time to persuade Joanna to come home.

Does it work?

THE RICHEST SEASON is one of the best books I have ever read. The emotional rollercoaster ride it took me on was exhausting, but the highs were breathtaking. I almost didn't read THE RICHEST SEASON because I wasn't sure if I could handle the memories that came back to me with each turn of the page, but I forged ahead. I soon learned that I couldn't put the book down, and when I did, it called out to me. This is a book that you will not want to miss. Maryann McFadden has a bestseller on her hands.

Courtsey of Romance Junkies

I really enjoyed this book. It shows the development of two characters and how they learn to trust each other. This is a perfect book for the woman who has college age children or older. It shows that all stages of life are important.

I would call it thoughtful chick lit as it is mind provoking but will appeal to the females.

A good vacation read--you will be insured of being entertained by the characters, their love interests and their families.

The Richest Season deals with a corporate wife of 25 years who, unhappy with her life, decides to reinvent it. She leaves her home for Pawley's Island, South Carolina where she interacts with the local residents and becomes a part of the community through her jobs and other activities.

The atmosphere that McFadden creates in her descriptions is the strongest element of The Richest Season. Some of these are so intense and well-drawn that you can feel the presence of the beach on every page. This is what helped me to keep reading right through to the end. On the whole though, I had difficulties with some areas of the book.

The following is not a spoiler (it's on the back of the book): Joanna is upset because her husband's new promotion means she'll have to leave her home again and move to somewhere she knows nobody. Her reaction to this is to suddenly leave her home and moves to somewhere she knows nobody! That sat badly with me the whole book. It made it difficult to really understand her.

Additionally, I found that the other characters were not fully realized. In the same way that I didn't really buy into Joanna's decision, I didn't really accept Paul's almost perfect transformation into what his wife would have preferred him to be. On the other hand, Grace has a secret which is not revealed until quite late into the story. This makes her character quite unequivocal which I found suited the story. When the secret is revealed, her behavior becomes understandable.

On the whole, I read this through to try to give it a fair chance. I discovered that Mary McFadden is talented, but it is also fair to say that her work is somewhat derivative and she has not yet truly found her own voice.

The Richest Season is like a life lesson. To look around and see how your own life is running and how you feel about yourself and your family or loved ones. In this story Joanna is the wife of a hard working corporate man who loves her and their two grown children but has little time for them. Joanna looks at all they have become and thinks this is not what she wants out of life. You work so you have things and better things but if you don't have time to enjoy them then is it worth it? She decides to leave and go to an old vacation spot of South Pawley Island. She meets an elderly woman who has her own life story to tell as well as other local characters. She finds peace in the sounds of the ocean and simple way of living. Meanwhile Paul, her husband, has been let go from his job because of a merger. Where does he go from there? Can he start over and when will his wife come home?

There are many complex themes running through these lives and the journey they take really is a life lesson for us all.

The Richest Season is the story of Joanna, a corporate housewife whose children are grown and gone. Her husband, Paul, has recently been promoted to a VP position at the telecommunications company he works for - and Joanna knows what that means. More long absences, more business trips, more of Paul putting his job before his family. So finally, pushed to the brink, Joanna decides to leave. She finds herself at Pawley Island in South Carolina with little money and no prospects, a far cry from her lush suburban home in New Jersey. Joanna meets an elderly woman named Grace, who has a secret of her own, and Joanna becomes a sort of part-time caretaker for Grace. As she begins her new life, Paul struggles to accept Joanna's decision (refusing to do so for a long time) and faces a crisis of his own. The Richest Season is about two people who have grown apart, and whether it's possible for them to grow together again.

I enjoyed The Richest Season. It was definitely a light beach read - anyone looking for substance or deep thought should search elsewhere. The book was reminiscent of Dorothea Benton Frank's The Land of Mango Sunsets, but I found it much more enjoyable. The book is satisfying and enjoyable, and I think any female would enjoy it, but most likely it speaks to women approaching the middle of their lives. The characters are well written and it is easy to sympathize with them. Overall, this is a great first effort from McFadden and I look forward to reading what she comes out with next!

(Incidentally, completely off topic, but I absolutely despised the cover of the ARC. The cover of the actual book is much better).

When I read this book, I felt like I was in the character's place. The descriptions of places and feelings transport you into the character's mind and body. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this!

I found The Richest Season well-written and entertaining, but it should have been cut..at least fifty to seventy five pages...all the descriptions of the minutae of Grace and Joanna's Island existence..at a certain point became boring..enough already of what they had for dinner, lunch, whether the old lady...fell alseep, looked older, younger..etc...around mid point...post the initial set-up, I wanted the story to move faster..but it didn't....and I found Grace an unlikeable old woman...and Joanna sort of an uninspiring lost soul....And the husband...he was for me by far the best of the lot...It was a little too much like a happy ever after Lifetime movie template....too fluffy...not enough edge...I feel it would draw many younger readers if the author .would fix those flaws, spice things up a bit.