“The kind of book I enjoy the most—sparkling characters, fast-moving plot and laugh-out-loud dialogue. A winner!” —New York Times bestselling author Susan Elizabeth Phillips on If You Only KnewNew York Times bestselling author Kristan Higgins welcomes you home in this witty, emotionally charged novel about the complications of life, love and familyOne step forward. Two steps back. The Tufts … complications of life, love and family
One step forward. Two steps back. The Tufts scholarship that put Nora Stuart on the path to becoming a Boston medical specialist was a step forward. Being hit by a car and then overhearing her boyfriend hit on another doctor when she thought she was dying? Two major steps back.
Injured in more ways than one, Nora feels her carefully built life cracking at the edges. There’s only one place to land: home. But the tiny Maine community she left fifteen years ago doesn’t necessarily want her. At every turn, someone holds the prodigal daughter of Scupper Island responsible for small-town drama and big-time disappointments.
With a tough islander mother who’s always been distant, a wild-child sister in jail and a withdrawn teenage niece as eager to ditch the island as Nora once was, Nora has her work cut out for her if she’s going to take what might be her last chance to mend the family. Balancing loss and opportunity, dark events from her past with hope for the future, Nora will discover that tackling old pain makes room for promise…and the chance to begin again.
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Wonderful story! Lots of laughter and tears. You’ll need a box of tissues handy.
I adore Kristan Higgins’ stories and this one was full of realistic characters and her trademark humor. Highly recommended!
I was granted an early copy of Now That You Mention It thanks to the lovely people at Harlequin and Netgalley.
Nora Stuart has it all, a handsome boyfriend, exciting career (okay, maybe not exciting, but it is rewarding), a lovely apartment, and plenty of friends.
So why is she waiting for the other shoe to drop?
When Nora is hit by a passing motorist and then awakens to her beloved flirting with a nurse over her seriously injured body, she is understandably upset.
Needing space to think, Nora hops a ferry back to Cupper Island and the not so warm arms of her family. It’s also the scene of her happiest and most heartbreaking moments in life.
As she tries to find her feet, readers are guided through a sentimental, emotional journey of her youth blended with the present day as she grapples with family connections and a new love interest.
This story is done in classic Kristan Higgans style; plenty of snarky humor, and characters who leap off the page and into your heart.
I loved every second of this book and will definitely be saving it to my keeper shelf!
I give Now That You Mention It 5 + lovely kisses- A Must Read!
Kristan Higgins somehow manages to grab me from the very first page while she weaves a deeply emotional journey and makes me laughed hysterically at the same time. I anticipate her every release!
First I want to say that Kristan Higgins is hilarious. I spit out my drink more than once while reading this book. Hysterical. Her witty internal dialogue cracked me up too. This was my first Kristan Higgins book and it was so good. If it’s any indication of how well written her other books are, then she’s a new favorite author.
If you love Kristan Higgins’s romances, pick up her lovely women’s fiction! I adored Now That You Mention It and am looking forward to her newest WF.
With every new release I read from Kristan Higgins, I am more and more amazed at the complexity and palpable emotion she brings to her characters. In Now That You Mention It, she has written a heroine that I fell absolutely in love with. Readers get to follow her from present to past and forward again and witness first hand some very stressful events that show how very human and resilient she is. Higgins also brought attention to underappreciated medical professionals and important awareness to a variety of emotional and physical medical conditions. Multiple relationships are featured that were both incredibly sad and fun to follow, and the subtle romance was oh so easy to cheer on. As with most all of Higgins’ work, this is another highly recommended piece of women’s fiction. Check it out!
My favorite quote:
“When you’re feeling sorry for yourself, my mother used to say, do something nice for someone else.”
Really good book! Real characters who are flawed, almost made me cry. It was nice to find another stand-alone women’s fiction book that was this good! Our heroine is Nora Stuart Doctor/specialist whom if it wasn’t for the scholarship she won in high school probably wouldn’t have made it out of a small town in Maine. Nora’s life is just perfect (almost) until she is hit by a bug truck and is laying in the hospital where she works unconscious. She then overhears her boyfriend hitting on another doctor and proclaiming that he was about to break-up with her anyway . Nora decides to go home after leaving 15 years ago to recuperate and find some answers about the father who left the family when Nora was only 12. Her mother is distant, no nonsense and hard to please while
her baby sister is a wild child and currently in jail. She also has a niece who wants nothing to do with her. Nora’s backstory is pretty depressing when you get to the high school years but when she was younger and the father was in the picture, her and her sister were very close. There are a couple of twists in the story that I just didn’t see coming (nice touch). The characters and story felt very real and my heart reached out to Nora for trying so hard to reconnect and bring some closure to herself and her family. Good life lessons and great points made. I would definitely read this book again.
I love Kristin Higgins books. They’re fun, fast read with lots of twists.
Loved the Maine setting; Ms. Higgins paints it perfectly. She also understands the way Maine forms its inhabitants and captures their accent authentically. The family dynamics are brilliant. As always, there’s wonderful humor in the story. I especially enjoyed the heroine’s encounters with her patients. Delightful and moving!
This book gave me all the feels and kept me turning the pages until I reached the end. Love it!
This was about self discovery. While there was romance thrown in. Nora was knocked down by a truck. At the hospital she found out that the man she was living with making it out with another right in front of her. That sent her home to the island of her youth. While there she was able to do some soul searching and coming to grips with her past. While looking forward to a better future with someone who had been there for her.
Full of humor, strong women, and an interesting story line, I really enjoyed this novel. Nora couldn’t leave Scupper Island fast enough when she finished high school. Now, it’s the place she needs to go to recover and reevaluate her life. It’s past time she worked things out with her mother and reconnected with her niece.
This is a novel of second chances and starting over, and, for Nora, to figure out who she is once and for all.
I loved the balance of serious with humor, one thing that Higgins does well.
A beautifully written story, filled with drama, life lessons, and deep emotions. It has such a naturally continuing flow that it pulled me right into Nora Stuart’s mind and life and held me there until the end. This story is one of those all-nighters, unputdownable until the very end.
I loved Nora and admired her. I looked up to her, though she was inspirational, such a beautiful person, tough, resilient, capable and fierce. But it was a long journey she had to go through to get to this point in her life.
All the adversity Nora has faced during her 35 years of life, and especially in the past year, left me gasping for air. How could one person attract that much drama and trouble? Why did all the people surrounding her turn out to be nasty? Why her own family turned their backs on her?
The story touches different social, criminal, and medical issues abundantly. From eating disorders to mental disabilities to physical attacks against women to attempted rape, murder, stalker, serious life-altering car accidents, bullying, repressing a young girl by the actions of the whole town, including her family, and so forth.
I felt for Nora, there were several times when I was in tears, cheering her on, wishing I could stand up for her and protect her during those brutal high school days.
Her journey to find her true self, to be comfortable with the person she is, to accept herself, and to be proud of the person she is deep inside without any pretention or pleasing anyone else is filled with challenges and diversity, tragedy and disloyalty.
I’m little uncomfortable with the solution to happiness, success, and finding meaningful relationships equaling to losing weight, this is brought up with two characters in the tale. That’s one of the points in the story that I am still processing, trying to balance its importance to the characters and their lives.
Reading this book was a very personal experience to me. There are several matters in the story that I noticed I had a very private reaction to, things that Nora went through that echoed in my mind and heart. For me, this book is one of those that after reading it you have that famous book hangover because the events and issues of the story keep playing in your mind. I loved the story yet I struggled with some events in the tale. I connected with the strong heroine on an emotional level. I adored the relationship Nora developed with Sullivan over time, and the honesty, tenderness, and sincerity that was in that relationship that had been missing in the other interactions Nora had with the people surrounding her.
While showing the beauty that is found in the world, from the joy of love, loyalty, peace of mind, and feeling secure with true friends and people who love you, the author shows the other side of the coin as well with the ugliness of jealousy, mobbing, threats, and feeling superior, putting others down to make yourself feel assured. The honest look of the human condition in today’s world might not have been what I expected from the novel, but it was clearly drawn with definite lines, both the light and the shadows evident in the tale.
Some books are entertainment, some books are a pure escape. Then there are the ones, like this one, that touch your heart, makes you ponder, and stop for a minute and think a little deeper. Books that give you an a-ha moment, that encourage and inspire you. Reading that kind of book is more of an experiencex1b than escape, they can be entertaining yet they leave a mark on your mind. ‘If you can be anything, be kind’ is echoing in my mind as I think about Now That You Mention It
~ Five Spoons
I hadn’t cried reading a book in a very long time, but this one – this one got to me in the most beautifully tearful ways that only a good book could.
Another great book. Love all of Kristan’s books, she never disappoints.
Love all books by Kritan Higgins
Excellent!!!
very endearing characters!
Love this author!