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Summary
Summary
Taylor McAden is a volunteer fireman who is always the first to plunge into danger. But there is one risk he can't bring himself to take: falling in love. Then he meets Denise Holden, a single mother who has moved to the small town of Edenton, North Carolina, to build a new life. A near fatal car crash will bring these two together, but before that can happen, Taylor must look into his past and see if it's not too late to take a chance on the future.
Author Notes
Nicholas Sparks was born in Omaha, Nebraska, on New Year's Eve, 1965. As a child, he lived in Minnesota, Los Angeles, and Grand Island, Nebraska, finally settling in Fair Oaks, California when he was eight. In 1984, he received a full scholarship to run track and field for the University of Notre Dame.
Sparks wrote one of his best-known stories, The Notebook, over a period of six months at age 28. It was published in 1996 and spent 56 weeks on the New York Times hardcover best-seller list followed by another 54 weeks on the paperback list. Sparks has had a string of New York Times bestsellers including: A Walk to Remember, Message in a Bottle, The Rescue, A Bend in the Road, Nights in Rodanthe, The Guardian, The Wedding, True Believer and its sequel, At First Sight, Dear John, The Choice, The Last Song, Safe Haven, The Best of Me, See Me, The Longest Ride, and Two by Two. The Choice will become his eleventh film adaptation.
Sparks is involved in many local and national charities, and is a major contributor to the Creative Writing Program (MFA) at the University of Notre Dame, where he provides scholarships, internships, and a fellowship annually. Along with his wife, he founded The Epiphany School in New Bern, North Carolina and the Nicholas Sparks Foundation.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Secret traumas again haunt Sparks's characters, in the author's fourth novel (after The Notebook; Message in a Bottle; A Walk to Remember). Denise Holden, the 29-year-old heroine, is destitute and forced to live in her mother's old house in Edenton, N.C. She's also the single mother of a handicapped child, Kyle, a four-year-old with "auditory processing problems" that render him unable to express himself or to fully understand others. Though she doesn't suspect it, Denise is on a literal collision course with true love. After she smashes her car into a tree and wakes up to discover Kyle missing, she finds deliverance in the form of Taylor McAden, dashing firefighter and compulsive risk taker, who rescues Kyle, too. Since Taylor enjoys an instant, unprecedented rapport with Kyle, there is little standing in the way of burgeoning romance. Trouble comes, however, when Denise learns of Taylor's checkered romantic past. Taylor's inability to commit, it seems, is somehow tied to his compulsive heroism, of which numerous histrionic examples are described. Denise's quest to find the source of Taylor's emotional distance takes up the final third of the book. The story here is mostly a pretext for the emotional assault that Sparks delivers, but when he manages to link affect to action, the result is cunningly crafted melodrama. These occasions are rare, though; more often Sparks gets bogged down in interminable interior monologue. Because these characters are preordained lovers, their feelings prescribed by fiction conventions, their psychology amounts to little more than a profusion of banality. Yet Sparks's narrative acquires immediacy when his characters' exaggerated emotions compel immoderate actions, and his readers will surely delight at these moments of heightened expressiveness. 1 million first printing; 24-city author tour. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
High-stakes weepmeister Sparks ( A Walk to Remember , 1999, etc.) opts for a happy ending his fourth time out. His writing has improvedthough it's still the equivalent of paint-by-numbersand he makes use this time of at least a vestige of credible psychology. That vestige involves the deep dark secretit has something to do with his father's death when son Taylor was ninethat haunts kind, good 36-year-old local contractor Taylor McAden and makes him withdraw from relationships whenever they start getting serious enough to maybe get permanent. He's done this twice before, and now he does it again with pretty and sweet single mother Denise Holton, age 29, who's moved from Atlanta to Taylor's town of Edenton, North Carolina, in order to devote her time more fully to training her four-year-old son Kyle to overcome the peculiar impediment he has that keeps him from achieving normal language acquisition. Okay? When Denise has a car accident in a bad storm, she's rescued by volunteer fireman Taylorwho also rescues little Kyle after he wanders away from his injured mom in the storm. Love blooms in the weeks that followuntil Taylor suddenly begins putting on the brakes. What is it that holds him back, when there just isn't any question but that he loves Denise and vice versa-not to mention that he's "great" with Kyle, just like a father? It will require a couple of near-death experiences (as fireman Taylor bravely risks his life to save others); emotional steadiness from the intelligent, good, true Denise; and the terrible death of a dear and devoted friend before Taylor will come to the point at last of confiding to Denise the terrible memory of how his father diedand the guilt that's been its legacy to Taylor. The psychological dam broken, love will at last be able to flow. More Hallmarkiana, from a shameless expert in the genre.
Booklist Review
Sparks has carved out a niche for himself as one of the top male authors of romantic melodrama. Taylor McAden is a contractor by profession, but his passion is his work as a volunteer firefighter in the small town of Edenton, North Carolina. Driven by his unarticulated feelings about his father's death, he's always ready to help and prides himself on taking risks that no other man would take. At 36, Taylor has always shied away from relationships, but he finds it hard to distance himself from Denise Holden and her learning-disabled son, Kyle, whom he helps rescue from a car accident. Denise has come to Edenton because she inherited a house from her late grandparents and needs to live rent-free so she can devote herself to Kyle. Struggling to make ends meet as a single mom, she is surprised to find herself attracted to a man like Taylor, who is so different from the educated men she met when she lived and worked in Atlanta as a teacher. As Denise watches Taylor treat Kyle as he would a normal child, she realizes that he truly is special and opens her heart to him. When their relationship becomes serious, however, Taylor pulls away, but when tragedy once again enters his life, Denise is the one he wants most. All of Sparks' trademark elements--love, loss, and small-town life--are present in this terrific summer read. --Patty Engelmann
Library Journal Review
Though detractors may say he writes "like a girl," the would-be king of romance (The Notebook) continues to please his readers. In Edenton, a small town on the North Carolina coast, Denise Holton struggles to raise her young son, Kyle, alone. Adding to her isolation is her time-consuming effort to combat Kyle's severe language-processing disability. As a result of a car accident during a storm, she meets Taylor McAden, a local contractor and volunteer fireman. Though Taylor seems to be meant for DeniseÄhe evidently loves Kyle as wellÄhe suffers from a classic case of "can't commit." But is it more than that? What's behind the faade of this charming rescuer? Taylor comes close to losing what he most desires as he finally confronts his secret demons. This novel will appeal to female readers seeking another romantic story with a happy ending.ÄRebecca Sturm Kelm, Northern Kentucky Univ. Lib., Highland Heights (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
