Home Again: A Novel
NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the author The Women, a moving, powerful novel about the fragile threads that bind together our lives and the astonishing potential of second chances
“A tender, beautifully told story of emotional growth, forgiveness [and] the possibility of miracles.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Madelaine Hillyard is a world-famous heart surgeon at the top of her game. Her personal life is far less successful. A loving but overworked single mom, she is constantly at odds with her teenage daughter. At sixteen, Lina is confused, angry, and fast becoming a stranger to her mother—a rebel desperate to find the father who walked away before she was born. Complicating matters for Madelaine are the vastly different DeMarco brothers: While priest Francis DeMarco is always ready to lend a helping hand, his brother, Angel, long ago took on the role of bad boy. Years earlier Angel abandoned Madelaine—and fatherhood—to go in search of fame and fortune. His departure left Madelaine devastated, but now he reappears and seeks help from the very people he betrayed—as a patient in dire need.
“A tender, beautifully told story of emotional growth, forgiveness [and] the possibility of miracles.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Madelaine Hillyard is a world-famous heart surgeon at the top of her game. Her personal life is far less successful. A loving but overworked single mom, she is constantly at odds with her teenage daughter. At sixteen, Lina is confused, angry, and fast becoming a stranger to her mother—a rebel desperate to find the father who walked away before she was born. Complicating matters for Madelaine are the vastly different DeMarco brothers: While priest Francis DeMarco is always ready to lend a helping hand, his brother, Angel, long ago took on the role of bad boy. Years earlier Angel abandoned Madelaine—and fatherhood—to go in search of fame and fortune. His departure left Madelaine devastated, but now he reappears and seeks help from the very people he betrayed—as a patient in dire need.
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Community Reviews
I’m an ICU nurse on a cardiovascular ICU floor (my hospital does everything cardiac but heart transplants) which is why I chose this book.
I like the way the author tells stories - she doesn’t shy away from pointing out raw emotions she creates in her characters - ones that keep you engaged. I really enjoyed this book and liked the thought provoking questions at the end.
I only gave this 4 out of 5 stars because I feel like how she tells stories is similar, like I can sometimes guess where I think she’s going in the storyline. Sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes I’m right, but I still enjoy her books!
I like the way the author tells stories - she doesn’t shy away from pointing out raw emotions she creates in her characters - ones that keep you engaged. I really enjoyed this book and liked the thought provoking questions at the end.
I only gave this 4 out of 5 stars because I feel like how she tells stories is similar, like I can sometimes guess where I think she’s going in the storyline. Sometimes I’m wrong, sometimes I’m right, but I still enjoy her books!
I just found this book so boring, unrealistic, and a great plot for a bad lifetime movie. Not much more to say. (Kindle).
Kristin Hannah’s Home Again is a tale of two brothers: “Angel had gotten all the courage in the family, and Francis had gotten all the faith.” Angel the Screw-up’s “whole life had been a headlong rush to death, and he had no hope, no real hope, that he would ever wake up again, that this stranger’s heart would be his redemption.” Saint Francis is “a priest in love with a woman; a man in love with God.”
Madeliane is the tie that binds the disparate siblings. Madelaine grew up in a mansion behind the iron gates; Alex lived in a trailer park on the wrong side of the tracks. When they fall in love and she ends up pregnant, Alex panics and flees, only to “spend the rest of my life dreaming about a girl I’d walked away from.”
Madelaine raises their daughter and pursues her dream of becoming a cardiologist. Alex is diagnosed with a fatal heart condition, and “his life depended on the woman he’d betrayed.” Meanwhile, Madelaine is struggling with a rebellious teenager seeking answers about her father.
“Home is part of us. It’s in the scars we have on our knees and elbows, in the memories that surface when we sleep. I don’t think you can ever really leave…A brother’s love, a father’s love, a family’s love…love wasn’t like bodies–it didn’t go away, not ever. It stayed there inside of you, tangled in moments and memories…Love is a gift from God–what we do with it is up to us.”
“Maybe divine inspiration isn’t what we think it will be…Maybe it’s divine inspiration that brought us here in the first place. Maybe that’s all God’s supposed to do, point us on a road and wait. The road’s there, it’s always there, through the wind and the rain and the snow…Maybe what you have to do is stop searching so hard for the road beneath your feet…and begin to walk, and believe that the pavement is solid beneath you…Believe in the road.”
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