Customer Reviews

The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch: A Novel

5 star:		(36)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This book is amazingly well written for a first novel. A mix between a romance novel and a coming of age story, it is both touching and joyful.

Lucy Hatch's husband dies in an accident, and Lucy moves back home to recover. Shortly after she arrives, Lucy meets a man that "rocks her world" literally and figuratively. Most of the story focuses on Lucy's processing what love has been for, what is has not been, and what she wants it to be.

I don't typically read romance novels, but stayed with this one because of the depth of Lucy's feelings for her husband, her family, and the new man in her life. It would be easy to assume that Lucy's marriage was loveless, and that she finds true love at last. Underlying this all is the concept that one can only love someone as best and as far as they will let you.

I recommend this book highly, and can't wait for Marsha Moyer's next one.

I read this one in a day - it was engrossing from start to finish. Light and sweet, not too much different than your average romance novel, but with a little more spark and substance. Normally, I tend to take a cynical bent on books like this, but it was such a pleasure to read, I set my cynic aside for the entire novel.

Thirty-three year old Lucy finds a new life for herself when her husband (whom she did not love) of fourteen years dies unexpectedly. She is unencumbered and free to make her life over. She moves back to her hometown and immediately becomes captivated by heartthrob country singer/carpenter Ash Farrell. Their relationship takes on the fun spar and parry that leads to the inevitable moment when they FINALLY get in bed together, beginning Lucy's sexual awakening. These love scenes are just juicy enough to give new meaning to Lucy's "second coming" (wink, wink).

For a first novel, this was so smooth and well-paced - there wasn't a hang-up in the whole book. A great escape novel that'll make you want to go out and find your own honky-tonk handyman.

If you're looking to be swept away for a night (because once you pick it up, you won't put it down), then you NEED to buy this book. Every once in a while you come across a gem of a story -- one that you fall into, where you feel you know the characters better than you know your best friend, where the emotions that tumble off the pages are every bit as powerful and heady as the ones that swept through you when you fell in love the first time...

This book defies categorization. It is a love story, a 'coming of age' story, a literary triumph... and hot, hot, hot. :) No, it's not a romance. No, it's not a 'let's fall in love and everything will be hunky dory' book. It's a soul-searching, soul-rending, beautiful story that will remind you what passion is -- and might just make you fall in love with your husband (or wife) all over again.

(BTW, The Last of the Honky-Tonk Angels is just as good... can't WAIT for the third! Write faster, Marsha!)

I know I just read a good book, because I keep thinking about Lucy, and I'm reluctant to pick up a new book just yet.

Lucy Hatch Breward is a 33 year old woman who finds herself suddenly widowed. Married 14 years to a man more married to his farm than to her, she finds that she doesn't know how to mourn him, and she doesn't know who he was or who she is now.

Lucy moves back to her hometown, and almost immediately is confroted by the town heartthrob, Ash Farrell. At first she tries to ignore him, but the more she tries, the more she realizes that Ash won't be ignored.

Lucy is on a quest to discover who she really is and what happened to her "light" when she married Mitch. Ash complicates and distracts her. At first she is angered and frustrated by him, but as she gets to know him, she starts to feel that she has always known him. This causes Lucy to feel enormous guilt for not grieving her husband.

Only when Lucy can give her husband his place and then begin to look forward to the next chapter in her life is she able to embrace her "light" and the future. This is a wonderful read for anyone who is at a crossroads in their life.

The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch is what I'd call a literary romance. You probably won't find it in the Romance section of your bookstore; at least, I didn't in mine. But it's got all the ingredients: girl meets boy, they fall in love, but will they stay together? What gives it that "literary" stature is Marsha Moyer's voice. She knows how to tell a story; she knows how to pull you into the character's head and heart. The book flows like warmed molasses. I grinned; I even cried. A good read, most definitely. Helen Ginger, Editor of Doing It Write.

Tears, Laughter, Steamy Sex, A Hero to die for, A Heroine whose emotions are right on, Likeable secondary characters, authentic settings, superb dialogue, believable plot - there wasn't anything about this book that I did not love... except that it ended. I am adding first time novelist, Marsha Moyer, to my "just buy it" list, and you should, too.

It took me 2 tries to really get into this book, but once it grabbed me I stayed up late to finish it. I think if I was from Texas I would have enjoyed it even more - stopping at "Willie B's" to eat ribs, going to the local honky tonk each week, the presence of religious zeal, and the overriding presence of what it is like to live in a small town where everyone knows everything.
An underlying current throughout the book is the fact that 3 fathers have left, shaping the people remaining, but no one is shedding a tear over these losses now, a refreshing fact in a coming of age story.

I have to start this review by admitting that I'm an idiot. At least 3 years ago, lovely and wise Avon author Christie Ridgway gave me a glowing recommendation for a trade paperback called THE SECOND COMING OF LUCY HATCH by Marsha Moyer. Christie glowed SO brightly about this book that I wisely went out and bought not only LUCY HATCH but it's companion novel THE LAST OF THE HONKY TONK ANGELS. So why am I an idiot, you ask? Because I let the book languish on my bookshelf for 3 years before finally picking it up to take on a long plane trip last week.

Lucy Hatch's second coming begins with the first line of the novel: I was thirty-three years old when my husband walked out into the field one morning and never came back and I went in one quick leap from wife to widow. At 19, Lucy had wed a taciturn, stoic 27-year-old farmer, believing that still waters run deep only to discover that sometimes still waters only run...well...still. For fourteen years, they were the kind of couple who had an abiding respect for each other but who rarely spoke and only made love with the lights off. Lucy sincerely grieves Mitchell when he dies but perhaps her greatest grief comes from admitting to herself that she also feels a tiny smidgen of relief.

Texas is in the very bones of this book and the grieving Lucy retreats to her hometown of Mooney, Texas to try to find the girl she lost all those years ago. As Lucy sets out to rediscover herself in a little ramshackle rental house out in the country, her family rallies around her: Aunt Dove, her "spinster aunt" and the wisest of the lot, her good looking brother Bailey, her slightly plus-sized and plus-hearted sister-in-law Geneva.

It's Bailey and Geneva who drag Lucy out of that rental house and back to her favorite teenage haunt--the local honky tonk, the Round-Up. That's where she comes face-to-face with town bad boy Ash Farrell. Ah, Ash Farrell! (Insert swooning sigh here). Although he's not a cowboy, Ash is a "cowboy hero" in the best sense of the tradition. He's a lean, tall drink of water--a carpenter (who knows how to use his hands!) by day and a singer who performs every Friday night down at the Round-Up. Women line up at the bar to vie for his attentions after each performance but the minute he sees Lucy, he "sets his sights on her." He brings her flowers, he brings her a puppy, he fixes her leaky pipes. (And no--that's not a metaphor!) His courtship and her initial resistance set every tongue in Mooney wagging.

Marsha Moyer is a master at both dialogue and characterization. I think I first fell in love with Ash when he was telling Lucy about the steeple at the local Baptist Church:


"Reverend Honeywell's got a couple of spotlights trained on it at night now," Ash said. "In case, I guess, Jesus decides to come back at two in the morning and can't see to land."

When we learn that Ash went into foster care at the age of four when they found him all alone in the house with his mentally ill mother, "sitting in the closet eating dog biscuits right out of the box," I'm ready to hand him both my house keys and my panties.

You often hear romance readers whining about how hard it is to create unique love scenes after they've written several books. Their hero and heroine have done it in the rocking chair. They've swung from the chandelier. There can't possibly be any new words left to describe how to put Tab A into Slot B, can there? After reading this book, I'm happy to discover that there are. The love scenes in this book are infused with emotion and helped to remind me that it's not the mechanics that need refreshing but the language used to describe them:

So I let myself slide under again, my mind floating somewhere between dark and light, aware of nothing but my skin under his thickened fingertips, the silken grit of his unshaved chin as it grazed behind my ears, the curve of my throat, the hollow of my collarbone. The quilt had fallen to the floor, and my nightgown worked itself into a tangle at my hips as I felt him move down over me, kissing and kissing, creating a smooth, undulating purl of response from my head to my toes.

As irresistible as Ash is, it's Lucy's voice--wry, funny, and unflinchingly honest--that truly propels the story. When her brother Bailey tells her, "I just want you to be safe is all," Lucy replies with, "My husband got chewed up by a farm machine. Safe is a word that's gone straight out of my vocabulary."


THE SECOND COMING OF LUCY HATCH is both a beautifully written novel and a fine romance. There are very few books that capture the true joy and terror of falling in love and this is one of the best I've ever read. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to pull Marsha Moyer's second book, THE LAST OF THE HONKY TONK ANGELS, straight off my shelf before my IQ drops even lower.

[...]

What a great new author, I can't wait to get my hands on more from her. This story just comes alive, the characters are fun and you can't help falling in love with all of them. It's difficult to put down, so once you start reading, clear your calander, and get your husband and kids or whoever to do the housework, lock yourself in the bedroom and have a great laugh at the expence of Ms. Lucy Hatch, and everyone else in her little town.....

_The Second Coming of Lucy Hatch_ is a magnificently written tale of awakening, in the bleakest of times, to a life that should have been yours from the start. For fourteen years, Lucy lived her life as it was supposed to be: up at dawn to tend the farm with her husband Mitchell, tend to the house, and be fast asleep by 9:30. This was the same day in and day out until the day of Mitchell's accident. From there on we really find out what the story of Lucy Hatch has in store.

The majority of the book establishes the second coming of Lucy Hatch. Not knowing the background of her life before returning to her hometown, you feel as if Lucy is ready to take things on as they come. Meeting Ash Farrell was the start of her second life, her true life if she was to listen to her Aunt Dove. As soon as things happen for Lucy, the town is abuzz with gossip. Unsure of how to take all of the attention, she looks to Ash for the key inspiration: "look people in the eye and smile". Once Lucy heeds the advice the glances arent as harsh as people intended them to be.

Ash helps awake a fire in her that had been silenced for her entire marriage with Mitchell. The rekindling of this flame was ultimately the remedy to her healing after Mitchell's death. Though the ending has you wishing for 50 or 100 more pages, you reflect on everything that had happened since page 1 and know that it was a fitting end to the tale.

Though it took me a while to start reading this book, I devoured it as soon as I got to chapter 2. From that point on the book continues to pick up pace and you are completely enveloped in the story. I recommend this with high praise and am very glad I read it. The tale may be bittersweet but it is a potent reminder never to lose sight of your true self in the relationships your life takes on. I am anxious to read Ms. Moyer's second book since I enjoyed this, her first book, so much.