The House on Hope Street
A Novel
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4.3 • 118 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Life was good for Liz and Jack Sutherland. In 18 years of marriage, they had built a family, a successful law practice, and a warm, happy home near San Francisco, in a house on Hope Street. Then, in an instant, it all fell apart. It began like any other Christmas morning, with joy and children's laughter. But for Jack Sutherland, a five-minute errand ends in tragedy. And suddenly, Liz is alone, facing painful questions in the wake of an unbearable loss.
How can she go on without her husband, her partner, her best friend? How can she grieve when she must console five devastated children, including one with special needs of his own? Powered by her children's love, Liz finds the strength to return to work, to become both mother and 'daddy', coaching her youngest son for the Special Olympics. And one by one the holidays come and go before her eyes: Valentine's Day without flowers and without Jack...Easter...July 4th...Then, just weeks before Labor Day, a devastating accident sends her oldest son to the hospital-and brings a doctor named Bill Webster into her life. Bill becomes a friend to Liz as he slowly heals her shattered son.
And as long as the days of summer blend into fall, a new relationship offers new hope, and Liz reflects on what she has, on what she's lost, on the little blessings that give strength when nothing else is left. Then, with the first anniversary of her husband's death approaching, and with it another Christmas in the house on Hope Street, Liz will face one more crisis before she can look back at a year of mourning and change-and ahead to the beginning of a new life.
THE HOUSE ON HOPE STREET is about learning to live again after you think life is over, about gettting up when you have been knocked down, again and again. It is about cherishing small miracles, and believing in big ones. It is above all about hope.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Have Kleenex near at hand; the heartstrings are plucked nonstop in this vintage Steel, her 49th (after The Wedding). Liz Sutherland, wife of the dashing Jack (also her partner in a divorce law practice) and mother of five great kids, is the happiest of women--until tragedy strikes. On Christmas Eve, the estranged husband of a Sutherland client kills his wife, then Jack, then himself. Steel spares us nothing. She knows the anatomy of grief--abhorrence of the unctuous word "arrangements"; the cruel return to consciousness each morning. If the metaphors are clunky (a bowling ball on the heart), so be it; Steel's palpable, contagious sincerity wins readers' empathy. At last Liz laughs again, then, inevitably, loves again. Her new amour is Dr. Bill Webster, and they meet when her oldest child, Peter, is injured in a swimming pool accident. Peter cheers on the new romance, and so does Liz's youngest, the developmentally delayed (and charming) Jamie. Teen daughter Megan and her two younger sisters try to derail the relationship, however, and Megan's sass provides a needed counterpoint to much sunniness. Steel's commitment to her main characters is unimpeachable; minor characters fare less well. Distracted Liz almost runs over a woman who then sends flowers instead of suing--a neat start to a relationship that never happens--and the murderer's orphaned children fall out of the plot with unsettling abruptness. Still, Steel's devoted readers will swallow the story in one gulp.
Customer Reviews
Liz
One of my favorite books. Couldn't put it down.
True beauty.
I gave this book five stars because it is a true book. It involves love, happiness, sadness and all the other qualities that make a great book. As you develop feelings for the special characters in the book, you find yourself not only IN the story..but LOVING it.