03/01/2020
Three years after partner Anita's death, architect Mitchell Fisher copes with his grief by writing her daily love letters—or mostly updates about their plucky nine-year-old daughter Poppy. He's still too guilt-ridden to open the note she left him on the morning of the accident that so unexpectedly took her life. For work, he removes the padlocks lining the city of Upchester's oldest bridge, a job he should loathe but secretly relishes. One fateful summer afternoon, with steel cutters in hand, he sees a woman with an uncanny resemblance to Anita who fastens her own declaration of love to the bridge, then loses her balance, plunging into the river below. Jumping in after her, Mitchell saves her life, but once safely ashore is knocked unconscious by a cyclist, having never learned the alluring stranger's name. His quest to find her takes the story in a surprising turn when Poppy's offbeat music teacher Liza claims the woman is her estranged sister Yvette, who's been missing for months. VERDICT Tender but twisty, this fourth novel from British author Patrick (The Curious Charms of Arthur Pepper) bears the writer's signature for layered tales of finding family and belonging, as she skillfully reveals the hidden connections that bind the lives of these endearing characters together. [See Prepub Alert, 10/14/19.]—Annalisa Pešek, Library Journal
2020-01-27
Three years after a single dad suffers the loss of his partner, he finds love again.
Mitchell Fisher, former architect and current city maintenance worker, is doing his best as a single dad. He and his 9-year-old daughter, Poppy, live in his onetime work-week crash pad in the city of Upchester, England, now the only home they have. It's been three years since Poppy’s mom, Anita, died in a car crash, and Mitchell is still struggling with his grief over her death and with the long hours he spent working apart from his little family in an effort to take care of them. Author Patrick (The Library of Lost and Found, 2019, etc.), known for her cozy tales, has crafted another one. The story here kicks off when Mitchell catches the eye of an attractive woman on a bridge just before she locks a padlock onto the railing, a token of love and commitment that's become a citywide trend. (Mitchell has to remove these padlocks as part of his job.) Then the woman falls into the river below. Despite not being a great swimmer, he jumps in and saves her, but he doesn't manage to learn the woman's name. When Mitchell becomes a local hero in the press, though, he finds out that the woman, whose name is Yvette, has been missing for 12 months, and he joins together with Liza, her sister (conveniently his daughter’s new music teacher), to locate her. Readers will need to suspend their disbelief at the tale; the right person always shows up at the right moment, solutions appear just as they are needed, health scares aren’t really that bad, and bad guys back down immediately. Told in uncomplicated prose, this is a straightforward story that takes as fact that love is truly in the air.
Fans of cozy fiction will enjoy this small escape from reality.
