Nights in Rodanthe (Paperback)

~ (Author) "Three years earlier, on a warm November morning in 1999, Adrienne Willis had returned to the Inn and at first glance had thought it unchanged,..." (more)
Key Phrases: hurricane guards, small step backward, Nicholas Sparks, Robert Torrelson, Paul Flanner (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Sparks (A Bend in the Road, etc.) logs more miles on the winding high road of romance with the story of two middle-aged people who meet by chance in the small North Carolina coastal town of Rodanthe. The impassioned but doomed romance seems to owe much to Robert James Waller's The Bridges of Madison County. Once again, a housewife who has focused on everyone but herself indulges in a brief, intense, secret affair with a stranger who changes her life forever. As the story begins, Adrienne Willis is 60, the divorced mother of three grown children. To help her troubled daughter cope with the untimely recent death of her husband, Adrienne tells her the tale of her love affair, which took place 15 years before. At the time, Adrienne was an uptight matron whose ex-husband had just left her for a younger woman. This rejection colors her entire life, and Sparks realistically portrays a vulnerable and isolated woman who throws herself into raising her children to escape her despair. Paul Flanner, her paramour, is a surgeon and an obsessive workaholic with no genuine connection to his wife or son, whose world completely falls apart when one of his patients inexplicably dies. Sparks builds a taut, plausible relationship between his protagonists, but even fans may be irked by the obviousness of their story and the inevitability of their fate.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Sparks, popular author of several romantically themed best-sellers, including Message in a Bottle (1998), is back at it with his latest mix of love story and pathos. He doesn't disappoint, whipping up plenty of melodrama in the story of two shattered people, both badly scarred by past experiences, who find each other late in life and realize they are soul mates. Adrienne Willis is a 45-year-old mother of three whose husband recently abandoned her for a younger woman. When she visits the small coastal town of Rodanthe, North Carolina, seeking a bit of respite from her problems, she meets Paul Flanner, a 54-year-old doctor who has sold his thriving medical practice and come to Rodanthe to escape his own tortured past. Despite their short courtship, the two find themselves falling madly and passionately in love and vow to spend their lives together. Unfortunately, Paul needs to make amends with the son he has long neglected and so embarks on an ill-fated trip, which leads to heartbreak. Sparks has a very solid fan base, and they will be clamoring for his latest. Kathleen Hughes
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Warner Books; 1st edition (July 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446691798
• ISBN-13: 978-0446691796
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (306 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #151,439 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

36 of 39 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Nicholas Sparks does it again........, September 18, 2002

By	"kblum12" (Pennsylvania USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nights in Rodanthe (Hardcover)

I just finished reading Nicholas Sparks latest creation "Nights in Rodanthe". Let me tell you...run do not walk to the store to purchase this one. I have read every single one of Sparks novels thus far. He writes like no other. His imagery is fantastic....as you are reading it is like a movie unfolding before your eyes. I will not outline the story for you here because I think that ruins it for the reader. Expect to cry (as usual). But expect to learn something and also to reflect on your own life as well. I think that is what I love most about Sparks is that everything is "real". You can relate by having experienced similar things or by knowing someone who has. I just wish he could write faster because as soon as one of his novels is released, I read it the same day...and then am stuck waiting, craving for the next one. I also highly recommend Message in a Bottle and The Rescue.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Simple, Absorbing Well Written Love Story, October 24, 2002

By	Tucker Andersen (Wall Street) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Nights in Rodanthe (Hardcover)

At age sixty, Adrienne Willis is faced with the fact that her daughter Amanda has been unable to regain her emotional equilibrium after her husband died of cancer. Adrienne becomes increasingly worried about the impact on Amanda's two young sons. Amanda rejects her mother's attempts to lend support, since she believes that her divorced mother does not "know what it is like to live through something like " the death of a loved one. Adrienne decides that Amanda needs to learn about a part of her mother's life that has been kept secret from her family, and as she reviews the items she has saved from her NIGHTS IN RODANTHE and as she rereads the letter from Paul (Flanner), by the end of the first chapter not only has the complete plot been revealed but we guess the conclusion in a general way.

Thus, the attraction of this story is its simplicity and spareness as the author gives us enough details to fulfill our curiosity but makes no attempt to embellish it beyond the necessary minimum. In a flashback to fifteen years ago, Adrienne agees to watch a coastal inn for a friend who has to attend a wedding. Because it is past the tourist season and a hurricane is forecast, Paul Flanner (a very successful surgeon who has just sold his practice to go to Ecuador to be with his son) is the only guest. They are both attempting to recover from failed marriages, and their few brief nights together become a life changing experience for each of them. This is the eternal story of our search to instill meaning into our lives, and the question of what constitutes real love.

I have read none of Nicholas Sparks' other books or THE BRIDGES OF MADISON COUNTY, but did see the movie MEASSAGE IN A BOTTLE. My only response to the critics of this book who compare it to those other works is that their disappointment seems to be based on their expectations, rather than on an evaluation of what the author was attempting to do with this story. In fact, I WAS GLAD THAT AN AUTHOR HAS DECIDED FOR ONCE THAT LESS CAN BE MORE, and the essence of a really good and compelling story about human emotions can be strong enough to stand on its own without a lot of embellishment. I believe that this story succeeds in fulfilling that goal, and therefore while I understand the very disparate reviews which it has received I strongly recommend it for those readers interested in what it purports to be, a story of life and rembrance of the healing power of love, even when fate has intervened to make those recollections bittersweet.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Get out your hankies!, November 16, 2002

By	Ratmammy "The Ratmammy" (Ratmammy's Town, CA USA) - See all my reviews (TOP 500 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Nights in Rodanthe (Hardcover)

NIGHTS IN RODANTHE by Nicholas Sparks

Another love story by the author of MESSAGE IN A BOTTLE and other tragedy-laden romances, NIGHTS IN RODANTHE recalls an older woman's memories of a love lost, but not forgotten.

Adrienne Willis is 60 years old and is trying to help her daughter Amanda deal with the recent death of her young husband. Amanda does not seem to be able to cope with the death, ignoring her young children's needs and falling apart before them all. Adrienne decides to tell Amanda the story of a man she loved many years ago, but due to circumstances that kept them apart, they did not have a "happily ever after". She hopes that this story will help Amanda with her own loss.

Fourteen years ago, three years after Adrienne's husband Jack had left her for another woman, Adrienne honors a request to help take care of a friend's Bed and Breakfast Inn while her friend goes away on vacation. Adrienne has yet to move on with her life since the divorce, and time spent at the Inn may be what Adrienne needs. There is only one guest that weekend, and it is Paul Flanner, a surgeon who is going through his own nightmare of a past, and happens to stay at the Inn while he conducts some business in town.

Adrienne and Paul connect and as they get to know each other, they fall in love. Paul, however, has already committed to spending time in South America and be with his son, who also happened to be a doctor. He tells Adrienne that as soon as his work is done there, he will come back for her and they would have plenty of time to be together.

Obviously, things did not work out for Adrienne and Paul, since Adrienne was sitting in her kitchen with her recently widowed daughter. What happens after that week in Rodanthe is Adrienne's story to her daughter, and what Amanda learns from her mother helps bring her back to the world of the living.

This was yet another heartbreaking story by Nicholas Sparks and I highly enjoyed it. I have read all of his books, and I still come back for more. What I find interesting is that people he knows inspire him to write most of his books, and this book was no exception. Inspired by his own courtship with his wife, Sparks yet again has written a winning book.