“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With a tough islander mother who’s always been distant, a wild-child sister in jail and a withdrawn teenage niece as eager to ditch the island as Nora once was, Nora has her work cut out for her if she’s going to take what might be her last chance to mend the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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I’ve been in a bit of a reading slump over the past month. Part holiday hoopla, part a total living situation change and adjustment to that change, and part being sick. Most books that would take me a day or two to read have been taking me 4 or 5, or even more, days. I really needed this one in the middle of all of that. I didn’t want to put this book down and was even able to block the rest of the world out while reading. Something I’ve had a hard time doing recently.
Admittedly, I wasn’t sure about my feelings on Nora for the first chapter or so. The more I got to know her, the more I was all in to defend her to the end. Nora is so much stronger than she realizes. Most of those around her, even her hometown that has been pretty crappy to her, see that strength and have respect for all she’s accomplished. Of course, there’s always the squeaky wheel. And the squeaky wheels in Scupper Island are extremely loud and rude. Yet Nora soldiers on with her head held high.
Not only did Nora steal my heart, but so did so many other Scupper Island residents. Even her mom, who is a crusty gal, intrigued me until I finally started to understand her. I fell in love with Sully and his daughter from the start, others took me a bit longer. But by the time I finished this book I feel as though, in some way or another, all of these characters were firmly entrenched in my heart.
Don’t mistake this for a light-hearted tale. There are a lot of heavy issues that are dealt with. In fact, here’s a good place for a trigger warning. There are some very traumatic events that happened in Nora’s past that will slowly come to light. As usual, Kristan Higgins has a perfect balance of emotions…from humor to angst to romantic and familial love to loathing and despair. It’s all there, but none so overwhelming to bog the story down.
One of my favorite relationships in this story is the connection between Nora and her niece. They start on very shaky ground. As the story progresses, and Poe starts to slowly trust Nora, their relationship develops in a beautiful yet delicate way.
I cannot get enough of this author and the heartfelt relationships she writes.
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Another winner by Kristina Higgins! You can’t go wrong with this lady!
So much fun! Loved this story!
Lots of twists and turns
Loved it
One of those perfectly comforting reads to curl up with and block out the world until you reluctantly turn the last page.
Nora is a gastro specialist who returns home to Scupper Island after a terrifying ordeal.
Here, she uncovers family secrets, bonds with her recalcitrant niece Poe and puts the past to rest.
I loved the gentle flow of this story (and the scene with Tweety the bird at her mother’s house made me LOL!)
Kristan Higgins is the best! I love all of her books, and I loved this one, even though it is a little darker than the others, perhaps because it’s primarily womens’ fiction. I laughed. I cried. And I did both simultaneously over the crazy bird, Tweety. And when I finished reading this book, I felt satisfied. I look forward to her next.
The author’s most recent books explore family and friend relationships. This book begins with Dr Nora Stuart, thinking she had died and the story that follows swings back from that present to the past and the future. Nora grew up Scupper Island, off the Maine coast. In her mind, her life with her parents and younger sister, Lily, was paradise, until her father suddenly left. Her mother, being a tough, practical woman, took care of her girls, but she was not a warm hugging person, and dealt with life as best she knew how. Nora’s reaction was to turn to food and Lily turned away from her sister. As Nora grew bigger, she was ridiculed by the popular kids and had few friends- but she was very smart and worked hard to win a scholarship that would get her off the island. That she won the scholarship and beat out the good looking jock who he and everyone else thought would win it, her life became so bitter there that she left and did not return for 15 years. However, with hard work she not only became a doctor, but lost all the extra weight by making the decision that she would be happy. But then two more terrible things happen. The first is hinted at but not defined until mid way in the book. The second is that while she is not dead but in the ER, she hears her boyfriend flirting with a resident saying he was going to dump her anyway. Once she recovers enough, she decides she wants to go to Scupper Island. But with her relationship with her mother not so great, will she be welcome? Wonderful characters, each with their own issues making this a fascinating read. Two laugh out loud dinners scenes equalize some very intensely sad ones. Not until the end does Nora find out what happened to her father, but she also does get a HEA, though not the one she expected.
“Funny, how easy that could be. When you found the right person, there was no hiding of flaws…there was just trying to do better. There was the comfort of admitting your weaknesses and trying to get past them. The knowledge that no one needed you to be on all the time, always fun, upbeat, attentive…He only needed you to be yourself. The security in knowing someone loved simply being with you.” <3
I love Kristin's work. She can make you laugh one second and cry the next. I enjoyed this book; I always like the going-back-where-you-came-from stories. My absolute favorite thing was when something was spelled out like a Mainah would say it, for example, her mother calling Bob "Bawb." It was delightful.
One strange thing about this book: in my head, Nora Stuart looked like Kristan Higgins. I just couldn't separate the two!
When Nora returns to Scupper Island to recuperate from and accident, she learns more about herself while unraveling a family mystery.
Great book. I finished it in one day.
Nora Stuart grew up on a small island off the coast of Maine. Her childhood was happy until she was 11, when he father abandoned the family without a word. Nora became withdrawn and turned to food and schoolwork for comfort. She was a fat, brainy kid that the other kids teased. Her sister, Lily, was thin and beautiful and threw her lot in with the “popular” kids to survive. Although they were close as kids, Lily and Nora became estranged due to their life choices.
The book starts with Nora as a successful doctor in Boston living with her ER chief doctor boyfriend. She heads out for pizza for the ER crew one night and is hit by a van. Her clavice and several ribs are broken, her patella is dislocated and she has lascerations on her spleen. ER chief boyfriend is there with her, but she hears him telling a beautiful resident that he had planned to break up with her that weekend and when she opens her eyes, he’s making a pass at the resident. Nora decides she needs to recover at her childhood home with her mother caring for her.
Problem is, Nora’s mother is not especially affectionate or demonstrative. The second problem is that Nora feels everyone on the island still hates her for winning a scholarship to Tufts that everyone assumed would be won by the island’s “golden boy,” Luke Flectcher. And, the third problem is that while she really wants to forge a relationship with her niece, Poe, Poe, like her mother Lilly, wants nothing to do with her.
Nora’s determined to start over, though, and fights her way back with the help of a new friend, Gloria, and an old high school friend, Xiaowen, who is now a foul-mouthed and sassy marine biologist. Oh, and there’s Sullivan Fletcher, Luke’s quiet brother, whose young daughter, Audrey, befriends Nora.
This is a novel about new beginnings, righting wrongs and misunderstanding and personal growth. It’s also about female relationships: Nora and her mother; Nora and her sister (who’s in prison, by the way); Nora and her niece; Nora and her female friends. I liked the way Higgins showed us a different angle on each of them. And, of course, it’s about Nora’s relationships with the men in her life: ER chief boyfriend, Bobby; quiet and strong, Sullivan Fletcher, and even loser Luke Fletcher, who blames his failures in life on her rather than his drug and alcohol addictions.
It’s a great book; very heartwarming and honest, but I will caution that I cried at the end. (Heart strings were tugged!) I read it in one day; that’s how engaged I was.
This was a fun book to read. While you feel sorry for the girl the main character was as a young girl, she has a great sense of humor.
Loved it!
This is packed with references to Harry Potter, which I haven’t read, so I missed much intended humor.
Loved it!
I love Kristan Higgins, she is my new go to author for contemporary fiction. I love that there are always animals included, and that some books are stand alone, but other’s are part of the same group of people. This one is a stand alone (so far).
When I need an easy-to-read, ends happily ever after book, I turn to Krisrin Higgans. Makes me feel good.
I usually seek out mysteries but this was a refreshing change of pace that I thoroughly enjoyed. It had me laughing out loud as well as getting choked up. Very well written and so easy to get to know the characters.. I missed them after finishing the book!
I don’t usually read this type of book but the fact that Maine is the locale appealed to me. I loved the main character and her family relationships. Great beach read.
Surprised by unexpected turn of events.