The Wishing Hill: A Novel

by Holly Robinson

Overview

What if everything you knew about your life was wrong?
 
Years ago, Juliet Clark gave up her life in California to follow the man she loved to Mexico and pursue her dream of being an artist. Now her marriage is over, and she’s alone, selling watercolors to tourists on the Puerto Vallarta boardwalk.
 
When her brother asks her to come home to wintery New England and care for their ailing mother, a flamboyant actress with a storied past, Juliet goes reluctantly. She and her self-absorbed mother have always clashed. Plus, nobody back home knows about her divorce—or the fact that she’s pregnant and her ex-husband is not the father.
 
Juliet intends to get her mother back on her feet and return to Mexico fast, but nothing goes as planned. Instead she meets a man who makes her question every choice and reawakens her spirit, even as she is being drawn into a long-running feud between her mother and a reclusive neighbor. Little does she know that these relationships hold the key to shocking secrets about her family and herself that have been hiding in plain sight.…

CONVERSATION GUIDE INCLUDED

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781101589717
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	07/02/2013
Sold by:	Penguin Group
Format:	NOOK Book
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	199,098
File size:	944 KB
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Holly Robinson is an award-winning journalist whose work appears regularly in national venues such as Better Homes and Gardens, Family Circle, Huffington Post, Ladies’ Home Journal, More, Open Salon, and Parents. Her first book, The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter: A Memoir, was a Target Breakout Book. Robinson holds a BA in biology from Clark University and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst. She and her husband have five children, two cats, a grumpy hamster, and two very stubborn small dogs.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

**Chosen by Ladies Home Journal as a Great Summer Read**

“A luminous novel of buried secrets.”—New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt

"A story about love, loss, secrets, and finding out where we're really supposed to be."—Maddie Dawson, author of The Stuff that Never Happened

"A novel that sings: of love for a child, regret for life, and the quiet triumphs of survival and finding each other again."—Susan Straight, National Book Award nominee for Highwire Moon and author of Between Heaven and Here

"Vivid [and] compassionate." —Margot Livesey

"Robinson's first novel sparkles with warmth and wit while tackling the prickly sides of a mother-daughter relationship. . .With deeply emotional passages tempered by humor and some surprising romance, Robinson's portrayal of family members striving to forge deeper connections after self-imposed absences is compelling. Fans of Martha Southgate and Heidi W. Durrow will enjoy this tender, full-hearted tale of quiet triumphs, mended fences and new connections."—Booklist

"There are relationship twists aplenty, relationships rearranged and reassessed, relationships that grow and others that die, and brand new relationships to explore. . .Robinson's fiction debut is a good beach read for those who like to reflect on the complexity and messiness of family relationships."—Kirkus Reviews

“So appealing and addictive.”—Novel Escapes (4 ½ stars) 

"An easy and engaging read, The Wishing Hill is an excellent choice for book lovers who can relate to the sometimes thorny aspects of family life.”—Merrimack Valley Magazine

Editorial Reviews

**Chosen by Ladies Home Journal as a Great Summer Read**

“A luminous novel of buried secrets.”—New York Times bestselling author Caroline Leavitt

"A story about love, loss, secrets, and finding out where we're really supposed to be."—Maddie Dawson, author of The Stuff that Never Happened

"A novel that sings: of love for a child, regret for life, and the quiet triumphs of survival and finding each other again."—Susan Straight, National Book Award nominee for Highwire Moon and author of Between Heaven and Here

"Vivid [and] compassionate." —Margot Livesey

"Robinson's first novel sparkles with warmth and wit while tackling the prickly sides of a mother-daughter relationship. . .With deeply emotional passages tempered by humor and some surprising romance, Robinson's portrayal of family members striving to forge deeper connections after self-imposed absences is compelling. Fans of Martha Southgate and Heidi W. Durrow will enjoy this tender, full-hearted tale of quiet triumphs, mended fences and new connections."—Booklist

"There are relationship twists aplenty, relationships rearranged and reassessed, relationships that grow and others that die, and brand new relationships to explore. . .Robinson's fiction debut is a good beach read for those who like to reflect on the complexity and messiness of family relationships."—Kirkus Reviews

“So appealing and addictive.”—Novel Escapes (4 ½ stars) 

"An easy and engaging read, The Wishing Hill is an excellent choice for book lovers who can relate to the sometimes thorny aspects of family life.”—Merrimack Valley Magazine

From the Publisher

To love or not to love, and how? And just exactly what is love, anyway? Those are the questions 40-year-old Juliet Clark faces when she gets a call from her brother asking her to return home to care for their aging mother, who is recovering from a broken hip. Juliet is in the throes of a divorce she didn't want, and she's pregnant, to boot--although not by her soon-to-be ex--and doesn't much like her mother anyway. But she loves her brother, and his lawyerly persuasion prevails. She leaves her freewheeling artist's life in Mexico for a Massachusetts winter with her self-centered, demanding, theatrical mother. Desiree hasn't changed, and the pair resume bickering as if Juliet hadn't lived away for decades. Thus begins what at first appears to be a typical mending-a-mother/daughter-relationship story. Thankfully, about a third of the way through, a series of small revelations lifts the book out of its potential slide into predictability. There are relationship twists aplenty: relationships rearranged and reassessed, relationships that grow and others that die, and brand new relationships to explore. When Juliet finds the answer to her question about love, it leads her to make tough decisions about the course of her life. Robinson's fiction debut is a good beach read for those who like to reflect on the complexity and messiness of family relationships.

Kirkus Reviews