Jaclyn’s Review: On Mystic Lake by Kristin Hannah

On Mystic Lake
written by Kristin Hannah
published by Ballantine Books, 2019 (first published 1999)

find it here: (affiliate links) Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Apple Books, Target, Kobo, Book Depository, Goodreads

Did I enjoy this book? This Kristen Hannah story focuses on a woman’s relationship with herself as told through the lack of relationship with her husband, daughter, and best friend. Our main character puts her daughter on a plane for a semester in Europe and finds out that her husband wants a divorce at the same time. She runs away back “home” to Mystic Lake for time to reflect and rediscover herself. This story would have been ideal if she had found herself on her own, but instead, she rekindles an old flame and becomes a nanny for his young daughter. So instead of discovering who she is and what she wants, she just replays her same life 20 years later. Please don’t get me wrong. I actually loved the characters; the little girl completely broke my heart. It just would have been nice for the woman to decide that she is worthwhile WITHOUT the man or child.

Would I recommend it? I still think this was a good story, and I loved the relationship she developed with the little girl. I would recommend reading this book, just don’t expect a great statement on feminism.
 

 

About the book – from Goodreads: Annie Colwater’s only child has just left home for school abroad. On that same day, her husband of twenty years confesses that he’s in love with a younger woman. Alone in the house that is no longer a home, Annie comes to the painful realization that for years she has been slowly disappearing. Lonely and afraid, she retreats to Mystic, the small Washington town where she grew up, hoping that there she can reclaim the woman she once was—the woman she is now desperate to become again.

In Mystic, she is reunited with her first love, Nick Delacroix, a recent widower unable to cope with his grieving, too-silent six-year-old daughter, Izzie. Together, the three of them begin to heal, and, at last, Annie learns that she can love without losing herself. But just when she has found a second chance at happiness, her life is turned upside down again, and Annie must make a choice no woman should have to make. . . .

 

 

 

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** This post first appeared on Every Free Chance Books (everyfreechance.com) on April 12, 2021.