Night of Miracles: A Novel

by Elizabeth Berg

Overview

The feel-good book of the year: a delightful novel of friendship, community, and the way small acts of kindness can change your life, by the bestselling author of The Story of Arthur Truluv
 
Lucille Howard is getting on in years, but she stays busy. Thanks to the inspiration of her dearly departed friend Arthur Truluv, she has begun to teach baking classes, sharing the secrets to her delicious classic Southern yellow cake, the perfect pinwheel cookies, and other sweet essentials. Her classes have become so popular that she’s hired Iris, a new resident of Mason, Missouri, as an assistant. Iris doesn’t know how to bake but she needs to keep her mind off a big decision she sorely regrets.

When a new family moves in next door and tragedy strikes, Lucille begins to look out for Lincoln, their son. Lincoln’s parents aren’t the only ones in town facing hard choices and uncertain futures. In these difficult times, the residents of Mason come together and find the true power of community—just when they need it the most.

“Elizabeth Berg’s characters jump right off the page and into your heart” said Fannie Flagg about The Story of Arthur Truluv. The same could be said about Night of Miracles, a heartwarming novel that reminds us that the people we come to love are often the ones we don’t expect.

Praise for Night of Miracles

“Happy, sad, sweet and slyly funny, [Night of Miracles] celebrates the nourishing comfort of community and provides a delightfully original take on the cycles of life.”—People (Book of the Week)

“Find refuge in Mason, a place blessedly free of the political chaos we now know as ‘real life.’ In Berg’s charming but far from shallow alternative reality, the focus is on the things that make life worth living: the human connections that light the way through the dark of aging, bereavement, illness and our own mistakes. . . . As the endearing, odd-lot characters of Mason, Missouri, coalesce into new families, dessert is served: a plateful of chocolate-and-vanilla pinwheel cookies for the soul.”—USA Today

“Full of empathy and charm, every chapter infuses the heart with a renewed sense of hope.” —Woman’s World

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780525509523
Publisher:	Random House Publishing Group
Publication date:	06/25/2019
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	104,728
Product dimensions:	5.16(w) x 7.96(h) x 0.66(d)

About the Author

Elizabeth Berg is the author of many bestselling novels, including The Story of Arthur Truluv, Open House (an Oprah’s Book Club selection), Talk Before Sleep, and The Year of Pleasures, as well as the short story collection The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted. Durable Goods and Joy School were selected as ALA Best Books of the Year. She adapted The Pull of the Moon into a play that enjoyed sold-out performances in Chicago and Indianapolis. Berg’s work has been published in thirty countries, and three of her novels have been turned into television movies. She is the founder of Writing Matters, a quality reading series dedicated to serving author, audience, and community. She teaches one-day writing workshops and is a popular speaker at venues around the country. Some of her most popular Facebook postings have been collected in Make Someone Happy and Still Happy. She lives outside Chicago.

Hometown:

Chicago, Illinois

Date of Birth:

December 2, 1948

Place of Birth:

St. Paul, Minnesota

Education:

Attended the University of Minnesota; St. Mary¿s College, A.A.S.

Read an Excerpt

Surely you’ve had this happen. You are seated by choice or misfortune in a window seat on an airplane. You look out as the plane takes off, rises up higher and higher, levels off. If you chance to glance down, you see a particular kind of order not realized on earth. You might feel a kind of hopefulness at the sight of houses clustered together in their various neighborhoods, at roads running straight or artfully curved, at what look like toy cars. You see the lakes and rivers, occasionally the wide stretch of ocean meeting horizon. You see natural quilts formed by the lay of fields and farmlands, you see the grouping of trees into parks and forests. Sometimes you see the splendor of autumn leaves or Fourth of July fireworks. Or sunsets. Or sunrises.
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Night of Miracles"
by .
Copyright © 2018 Elizabeth Berg.
Excerpted by permission of Random House Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Editorial Reviews

09/10/2018
Mason, Mo., is the enchanting setting for a series of small but life-changing events in Berg’s winning novel (following The Story of Arthur Truluv). Lucille Howard teaches a baking class out of her home, filling some of her days now that her friend Arthur has passed away. Maddy and Nola, Arthur’s “adopted” daughter and granddaughter, often stop by, dotting the days with brief visits that bring back fond memories. Other characters in the ensemble cast include Iris Winters, new in town and still trying to move on from her divorce; Abby Summers, whose recent cancer diagnosis is challenging for her as well as for her husband, Jason, and their son, Lincoln; and Tiny Dawson, who can’t stop going to the local diner but also can’t find the courage to ask out waitress Monica Mayhew—who in turn can’t stop wishing he would. The story’s center, however, is Lucille, who doles out companionship to the friends and acquaintances who come and go through her kitchen. The language is smooth and the story moves along at a comfortable pace to a fitting, albeit easy, ending. This pleasant novel highlights the joys that can come from the little things in life. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

Happy, sad, sweet and slyly funny, [Night of Miracles] celebrates the nourishing comfort of community and provides a delightfully original take on the cycles of life.”—People (Book of the Week)
 
“Find refuge in Mason, a place blessedly free of the political chaos we now know as ‘real life.’ In Berg’s charming but far from shallow alternative reality, the focus is on the things that make life worth living: the human connections that light the way through the dark of aging, bereavement, illness and our own mistakes. . . . As the endearing, odd-lot characters of Mason, Missouri, coalesce into new families, dessert is served: a plateful of chocolate-and-vanilla pinwheel cookies for the soul.”—USA Today
 
“Full of empathy and charm, every chapter infuses the heart with a renewed sense of hope.” —Woman’s World
 
“Night of Miracles by Elizabeth Berg is comfort food on a frosty day, a welcome reunion with characters we met in Berg’s novel The Story of Arthur Truluv. . . . Berg stirs our hearts with her palette of heartwarming small-town people, ordinary folks but nonetheless endearing. Simply written, homespun but not soppy with sentimentality, Night of Miracles is a feel-good read that would make a lovely gift featuring a crusty widow who believes in ‘baking from scratch’ for ‘cripes’ sake,’ a spitfire readers are sure to enjoy.”—The Missourian
 
“Elizabeth Berg’s new novel is a feel-good affirmation of life and love, but edgier and more interesting than the scripts one finds on the Hallmark Channel. . . . What elevates Night of Miracles is Berg’s crisp and often poetic writing and how effortlessly she weaves together her ensemble cast.”—The Columbus Dispatch
 
“Berg is a master of the ensemble cast, twining character arcs together, teasing knots apart, and tying the entire plot together beautifully. This will delight and inspire fans of Anna Quindlen and Amy Bloom and anyone who’s ever imagined living in Gilmore Girls’ Stars Hollow”—Booklist
 
“Mason, Mo., is the enchanting setting for a series of small but life-changing events in Berg’s winning novel. . . . The language is smooth and the story moves along at a comfortable pace. . . . This pleasant novel highlights the joys that can come from the little things in life.”—Publishers Weekly

“Elizabeth Berg is a master storyteller and one of my personal favorites. Night of Miracles is full of charming, entertaining characters that tug at the heart.”—Debbie Macomber, #1 New York Times bestselling author
 
“The thing about an Elizabeth Berg novel is, it’ll always make you feel hopeful. True to form, Night of Miracles is wise and funny, not shying away from life’s troubles but spotlighting the shining small miracles and pleasures of ordinary days. And, of course, there are delicious cakes.”—Jenna Blum, New York Times bestselling author of Those Who Save Us

From the Publisher

06/15/2018
Familiar to fans of best-selling/Oprah Pick author Berg's The Story of Arthur Truluv, Lucille Howard is enjoying her waning years by giving baking classes. She's also reaching out by hiring a new resident as her assistant and helping the folks next door with their son. Warm and satisfying as Lucille's cookies.

Library Journal

2018-08-21

Berg's sequel to TheStory of Arthur Truluv (2017) checks in with Arthur's friends, neighbors, and beneficiaries.

When the saintly Arthur Moses, dubbed "Truluv" by his de facto ward, Maddy, dies, he leaves behind a legacy of kindness. Maddy inherited Arthur's Mason, Missouri, home, now occupied rent-free by Lucille, his elderly former neighbor. Lucille is the central figure of this installment, although, judging from her dream visitations by the angel of death, it won't be long before she follows Arthur and her own late beloved, Frank, into the afterlife. For the nonce, however, Lucille's baking talent has led to a popular class hosted in her kitchen, and her cakes are hotly sought after by Polly's Henhouse, a local diner. The Henhouse is the site of one major subplot: Iris, a well-off resale maven from Boston, notices that Monica, a waitress, and Tiny, a regular, appear to have a crush on each other but are each too shy to act. Iris and Lucille share a longing for the children each, for different reasons, never had. Iris' decision was compelled by her ex-husband, Ed, now remarried—with child!—whence her flight to a small town. Seeking distraction, Iris answers Lucille's call for an assistant. The deepest dives are into Lucille's sugar- and fat-laden creations—no diabetes fears here. Link, short for Lincoln, Lucille's neighbor, is raised by vegetarians and must be disabused of such scruples by Lucille, who babysits for him while his mother, Abby, receives treatment for leukemia. We long for more substance as Berg touches on, but does not really engage, topics like aging, mortality, and America's obsession with appearance. She never acknowledges the contradictions—or the opportunities—presented by Iris' strange compulsion to forgive Ed, Lucille's devil-may-care attitude toward buttercream, the weight issues Tiny and Monica share, and the fact that the person with the healthiest diet gets cancer. In this small town, truisms prevail over truth every time.

Psychological realism sacrificed on the altar of niceness.

Kirkus Reviews