Bonnie Jack
A Novel
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3.7 • 28 Ratings
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
From the acclaimed author of the internationally bestselling Ava Lee novels, a bold and captivating new novel about a search for lost family and the cost of keeping secrets.
As a boy, Jack Anderson was abandoned by his mother in a Glasgow movie theatre. Now living in the United States and facing his impending retirement, Jack and his wife Anne travel to Scotland to track down his long-lost sister. Their journey takes them from their home in a quiet Boston suburb to the impoverished mill towns of Ayrshire, the gray cobbled streets of Glasgow, and the majestic Scottish Highlands. Along the way, Jack gets entangled in local affairs and must confront uncomfortable truths about family, legacy, and the wife he thought he knew.
Bonnie Jack, the first stand-alone novel by acclaimed author Ian Hamilton, is a compelling story about the importance of family, self-discovery, and the lengths we go to protect the ones we love.
APPLE BOOKS REVIEW
It’s remarkable to watch a novelist work through some of life’s most painful questions—especially when the story they’ve written is inspired by personal experience. In Bonnie Jack, a successful American insurance executive named Jack drops a bomb on his wife, Anne, and their adult kids when he reveals to them that he was left by his mother at a movie theatre in his native Glasgow when he was just a child, and he’s been struggling with the fallout from her abandonment all his life. Jack’s truth telling launches a trip to Scotland, where he and his wife attempt to piece together Jack’s fragmented origin story, uncovering shocking new truths and painful revelations. Best-selling mystery writer Ian Hamilton—whose very different Ava Lee series is a longtime favourite—drew inspiration from his own father’s story for this poignant novel. He pulls us into Jack’s and Anne’s heads and hearts with fascinating inner monologues, resulting in a surprising and thoughtful novel that sticks with you.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This glacially paced novel with minor mystery subplots from Hamilton (the Ava Lee series) focuses on Jack Anderson, the head of a successful Massachusetts insurance company. On Thanksgiving 1989, Jack reveals to his family that he has lied about his past to everyone, including his wife, Anne. When Anderson was six years old, his mother took him and his older sister, Moira, to a movie double feature in Glasgow, Scotland, where they lived. After the first film ended, she told Jack she was just going to take Moira to the bathroom; instead, she abandoned him. When the authorities contacted Jack's father, the father told them he wasn't interested, and Jack ended up in foster care, eventually getting adopted by an American couple, whom Anderson has said are his birth parents. Jack finds Moira, who agrees to meet, and after Jack and Anne travel to Scotland, they learn more family secrets and wind up dealing with violent criminals. Hamilton tells rather than shows, an approach that further lessens the emotional impact of the plot's surprises. Contrivances that enable resolution of serious issues don't aid engagement with either the story or its characters. This is for Hamilton fans only.
