What Matters Most: A Novel [Mass Market Paperback]

Luanne Rice (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 24, 2008

With every New York Times bestseller, Luanne Rice illuminates yet another of the secret wonders of the heart. Her unforgettable evocations of family, friendship, and loves lost and won in such novels as The Edge of Winter, Sandcastles, and Summer of Roses give voice to our most powerful emotions. Now she brings back two of her most beloved characters to tell of their journey across the sea to unravel the mysteries of a shared past—and two undying love affairs.…

What Matters Most

Sister Bernadette Ignatius has returned to Ireland in the company of Tom Kelly to search for the past—and the son—they left behind. For it was here that these two long-ago lovers spent a season of magic before Bernadette’s calling led her to a vocation as Mother Superior at Star of the Sea Academy on the sea-tossed Connecticut shore. For Tom, Bernadette’s choice meant giving up his fortune and taking the job as caretaker at Star of the Sea, where he could be close to the woman he could no longer have but whom he never stopped loving. And while one miracle drew them apart, another is about to bring them together again.

For somewhere in Dublin a young man named Seamus Sullivan is also on a search, dreaming of being reunited with his own first love, the only “family” he’s ever known. They’d been inseparable growing up together at St. Augustine’s Children’s Home, until Kathleen Murphy’s parents claimed her and she vanished across the sea to America. Now, in a Newport mansion, that very girl, grown to womanhood, works as a maid and waits with a faith that defies all reason for the miracle that will bring back the only boy she’s ever loved.

That miracle is at hand—but like most miracles, it can come only after the darkest of nights and the deepest of heartbreaks. For life can be as precarious as a walk along a cliff, and its greatest rewards reached only by those who dare to risk everything…for what matters most.


From the Hardcover edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

True love never dies—but it may need the helping hand of the Virgin Mary and the luck o' the Irish to survive in Rice's latest, effectively a sequel to last year's Sandcastles. Sister Bernadette Ignatius (the former Bernie Sullivan), Mother Superior at the coastal Connecticut Star of the Sea Academy, travels to Dublin with Tom Kelly, the academy's ombudsman, seeking James, the son they gave up over 20 years ago. In a parallel narrative set up in a prologue, young James and Kathleen, raised together as orphans, are devastated when they are forced to separate when Kathleen is 13. While Bernie and Tom look for James (now calling himself Seamus), James searches for Kathleen, who pines for him in a Newport, R.I., mansion, where she is a cook and maid for an atrocious, wealthy family. Rice juices up the predictable plot line with miraculous visions, ghosts, convenient encounters and melodramatic twists of fate—yet the effects are still lukewarm, though there's guilt, redemption and three-hankie moments aplenty for those who stick it out to the end. (July)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

Rice returns to familiar haunts in her latest romantic family saga. She also reprises two characters from last year's Sandcastles (2006): Sister Bernadette, the superior at a girls' school in Connecticut, and Tom Kelly, the groundskeeper who has always loved her. They are on a mission, traveling to Dublin to locate the son they left with the sisters at a convent 23 years earlier, just before Bernie became a nun. Unbeknownst to Bernie and Tom, their son, James, was never placed with a loving family but instead lived a lonely life at the children's home, his only friend a girl his age, Kathleen, from whom he was separated when they were 13. Rice skillfully weaves together the stories of these two apparently doomed romances, shifting across time and continents, as Bernie and Tom try to reconnect with James, and as Kathleen, now working in America, waits for her first love to find her there. While a few hurdles are removed too conveniently, Rice's characters are engaging, compelling the reader to keep those pages turning until all loose threads are tied. Donovan, Deborah
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 496 pages
• Publisher: Bantam; Reprint edition (June 24, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553589709
• ISBN-13: 978-0553589702
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1 x 6.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #221,106 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

LUANNE RICE is the New York Times bestselling author of twenty-nine novels, most recently The Silver Boat. Her books, including Cloud Nine and Dream Country, often center on love, family, nature and the sea, and have been translated into twenty-four languages. A number of Rice's novels have been adapted for television, including Crazy in Love for TNT, Blue Moon for CBS, the Hallmark Hall of Fame presentations of Follow the Stars Home and Silver Bells, and Beach Girls as a summer drama series for Lifetime Television. She has contributed a theatrical piece to the new off Broadway play Motherhood Out Loud. Rice loves nature and frequently writes about it. Born in New Britain, Connecticut, Rice divides her time between New York City and Old Lyme, Connecticut, in the house where she spent all her childhood summers.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

32 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent - Luanne Rice at her very best, July 21, 2007

By 

Maudeen Wachsmith "BeachReader" (Port Townsend, WA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: What Matters Most: A Novel (Hardcover)

I just now finished this fabulous book -- though I must admit I could barely read the last 30 pages I was crying/sobbing so hard!!! Honestly, I couldn't see the pages. I dropped everything else I was reading when this book arrived Thursday but really started reading it voraciously Friday night, read until 2 AM and then have been reading it all day today. This is the story of Sister Bernadette and Tom Kelly from Sandcastles and their trip to Ireland to try to find the son they gave up for adoption 23 years earlier. I will admit to being disappointed by several of Luanne Rice's recent books (although I did enjoy Sandcastles) but this is without a doubt the best Luanne Rice has done in years, even better than the Roses series from a couple years ago. There was a little plot device toward the end that I wish she hadn't used but honestly, I can forgive her for it since the over 330 pages were so fabulous; pulled at the heartstrings so magnificently. Two of the hallmarks of a GREAT book for me --- if it makes me cry/sob and if I can read it straight through without putting it down. This had both. Second only to A Thousand Splendid Suns as the best book I have read all year. And PLEASE if you are going to read this book do not read the one-star review by Jean DeVilbiss from July 19th. She gives a MAJOR SPOILER, one that isn't in the book until waaayyyy at the end. To give this in a review on Amazon is absolutely unconscionable--and I can only hope that Amazon takes it down before it is ruined for other readers.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Enchanting -- sort of, July 28, 2007

By 

JessamynMarie "Lone Star Librarian" (Houston) - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Matters Most: A Novel (Hardcover)

I loved the characters, the suspense, the aunguish. I don't always require a neat and tidy ending but was disappointed how it all turned out with Tom (that scene needed more detail, I found it unbelievable). Without writing a spoiler review, may I say: I wanted more for this character.

The questions that kept me reading: Would Bernie give up being a nun? Would Seamus and Kathleen reunite? Would all the characters reconcile? A good blend of apeal factors for me -- lots of "heart" the connection to Ireland, the various hopes each character had to get things right. At times melodramatic, but I couldn't put it down. I think my mother would love this; one of her favorite books is THORN BIRDS, which in some small way this resembles, at least in the Catholic appeal factors. Not that you have to be Catholic to enjoy it!

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Not my Favorite Luanne Rice, August 31, 2007

By 

JJ Stark (Cicero, IL USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: What Matters Most: A Novel (Hardcover)

I've read every Luanne Rice book since Cloud Nine. A few of these earlier books are some of favorites (Follow the Stars Home, Beach Girls). Most of her books follow the same plot lines - there's usually a couple who's trying to beat the odds to be together. Children are almost always involved as the ones in the middle - the ones who pull the adults together.

WHAT MATTERS THE MOST follows along these same lines - Sister Bernadette & Tom Kelly travel to Ireland to search for the son they long ago gave up for adoption. The son is no longer a child, but rather a grown man with his own love life hanging in the balance. While searching for their son, Tom & Bernie must face serious doubts and questions that are raised.

In all honesty I found the book to be a little boring at times. Chapters seemed to go on and on with no direction at all. At times, I felt that Rice wasn't sure what she wanted to do with the characters, and because of that, the characters' actions are sort of all over the place (i.e., upon meeting his "parents" Seamus is very upset & writes a very angry letter, but in the very next scene, he's already remorseful).

Without giving anything away (I hope Amazon removes a few reviews!!)- I HATED the last 1/4 of the book. It's definitely not your typical Luanne Rice ending. I was left unsatisfied as I felt Sister Bernadette was. It didn't really seem like the characters had grown at all as a result of what happened during the story. Perhaps the ending is a set up for another follow up (the story of Seamus & Catherine), but it would have been nice to resolve one story before setting another one up.

Just because I didn't really care for this particular story, I won't stop reading Luanne Rice's novels. I look forward to each summer when her books come out, and I will anxiously await to see what she has in store for readers next year. I just hope the next book is a little more uplifting, with a story that is more resolved. This book was originally set up in last year's SANDCASTLES, and I have a funny feeling that this book is a set up for another one down the road. I'd like to see an original Luanne Rice novel - one that's full of new characters that won't end with the possibility of a sequel. There's such a thing as "too much of a good thing" and I think Luanne Rice is seriously pushing those boundaries.