Customer Reviews

Time to Say Good-Bye

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

 

 

In the Santa Cruz Mountains near Monterey, California, Josh and Joanna Lawrence run an internationally acclaimed orchid business. Besides the success of their enterprise, observers clearly can see that the couple loves each other and will FOREVER. However, a serpent enters the picturesque lifestyle of the Lawrences when Joann learns she suffers from brain cancer that leaves her with a few months of life left.

Knowing she will love Josh TILL THE END OF TIME, Joanna establishes two goals to complete before she dies. She wants to build a grotto and find her replacement so that Josh goes on with his life. She hires artist April Woodward to accomplish her first aim and to fulfill the role of the second objective as Josh's SECOND LOVE.

TIME TO SAY GOOD-BYE is a heart wrenching relationship drama centering on a terminally ill person accepting her impending death with a grace and an unselfish love by placing her spouse first. When the story line focuses on the triangle, the tale is warm and sensitive. However, when Judith Gould adds unnecessary elements of suspense caused by a teaming up of Joanna's envious sister and a despicable business rival, the tale loses some of its momentum and charm. In spite of this insipid sidebar, Ms. Gould provides her readers with a tribute to the power of love.

Harriet Klausner

I find it amazing that writers like Jackie Collins and Danielle Steele always find themselves on the NY Times Best Seller List while Judith Gould has not been there for years. If you are a fan of this genre you would be doing yourself a favor to pick up a Gould novel. Gould's writing is always fun and clever and her writing is far better than the above mentioned duo. The stories are always varied so you don't feel you are getting the same plot over and over again. I've given this novel four stars because I've read previous novels by Gould that I found to be truly excellent: FOREVER and TOO DAMN RICH. Although this novel is very good and Gould's prose is always better than your normal fiction, this book wasn't up to the excellence of the previous novels so I've given four stars. That's not to say you shouldn't read this novel. It's far better than your average fare.

The book was good, well written but very perdictable. I actually cried at the end it was that moving but I finished it within a day. Hope to read many more of Judith's works.

Joanna and Josh Lawrence are running a successful orchid business on the beautiful Monterey Peninsula and have a pleasant and fulfilling lifestyle, and after nearly 10 years of marriage are still infatuated with each other. Joanna decides that she wants to build a grotto in an old barn on their property with shells that she has collected and approaches designer April Woodward to do the job. Joanna and April are instantly compatible and Joanna loves her ideas for the project.

It soon becomes apparent, however, that Joanna has more than just this creative endeavor in mind. She is looking for a good friend and for a companion for Josh because she has discovered that she has terminal brain cancer. Neither Josh or April are aware of her disease, and she keeps it hidden until the symptoms are obvious.

To keep the story moving along, the author introduces the sub-plot of a competitor who is trying to buy the orchid business, which Josh and Joanna are unwilling to sell. Another sub-plot is built around the antics of Joanna's sister Christina who is a shallow, selfish slut, about as different from Joanna as possible.

Although the novel was meant to be a tear-jerker, I wasn't terribly moved by either the characters or the plot. The descriptions of the orchid business and the lavish grotto that Joanna and April are building are interesting and well researched, but the story seemed just too contrived. There was no mystery, and the ending could be predicted half way through the book.

If you want to lose yourself in a bittersweet love-story, this is the book for you as long as you can suspend your view of reality for the short time it will take you to read this 290 page novel.

April Woodward is an interior designer approached by the rich Joanna Von Leydon to create a grotto of her own imaginations and collected shells and motifs, and never she expect that she would experience a watershed year of her life. April meets Josh, Joanna's husband and with her own manipulations, Joanna finds April a compatible candidate to take care of Josh after she leaves the world with cancer. As an established orchid nursery and corporation, Josh struggles to fend and fortify the legacy from treacherous betrayal, sexual liaisons.... going through life and knowing together with April - what is love and friendship with Joanna's departure.

TIME TO SAY GOODBYE offers a good story premise and a four-hankie tearjerker that strives to touch readers with its melancholy but fail abysmally. The tragedy is trite with little emotional force to render it unsettling, and the plot belongs to a category found in a perfect beachbook which is embarrassingly sentimental. The prose on love and friendship offers no insight, and Josh seems to take it in his stride about his wife's death. April seems like a substitute to take her place, without any ounce of character. Lusty sex scenes to titillate and a predictible mystery plot make this book overwrought with too many banal stereotypes.

Judith Gould is an author who can offer more - take Rhapsody and Too Damn Rich for example - and TIME TO SAY GOODBYE seems to bid farewell to her usual talents in creating interesting woman's fiction.

This is a great love story and a real tear-jerker full of goodness and hope, with principle characters I couldn't help but love. There is also a racy subplot that makes the story lots of fun. It's almost like evil enters the Garden of Eden and, even if there are casualties, in the end hope and love triumph.

This was a book that I couldn't put down! I love all Judith Gould books! The story kept me interested all the way through. Wish there was a sequel.

Joanna Lawrence wants to have a grotto built out of the shells she's collected over the years. She has been searching for the perfect person to build it, someone who understands what she really wants, someone who will take her place as her husband's companion when she dies. She thinks she's found that person in April Woodward. Josh and Joanna have loved each other since college. A protege of her father's, Josh has learned the orchid business, and he and Joanna done quite well for themselves. Now someone is sabotaging his business, costing him a fortune. In the midst of this, Joanna has become mysterious with unexplained absences that has Josh questioning their relationship. Into this foray comes April, the beautiful ex-wife of a movie star, who is drawn to Josh like a magnet. Though the research is good and the story line plausible, the characterization and plotting fall flat. The much used streams of consciousness disrupt the reader rather than shed new light or move the story along. Given the streamlined number of characters, it's not difficult to identify the saboteur.

What drivel! I wonder if it was as boring to write as it was to read. If I were keeping track of authors to avoid, this one would be at the top of my list.

The book was a huge disappointment. At the end of Chapter 1 I knew exactly what was going to happen. Thoughout the book I found myself wondering why I was still reading it when I new the outcome from the beginning. I have always enjoyed Ms. Gould's books in the past but not this one.