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Summary
Summary
A powerfully moving novel of love, loss, hope, and family from bestselling author James Patterson.
Katie Wilkinson has found her perfect man at last. He's a writer, a house painter, an original thinker - everything she's imagined she wanted in a partner. But one day, without explanation, he disappears from her life, leaving behind only a diary for her to read.
This diary is a love letter written by a new mother named Suzanne for her baby son, Nicholas. In it she pours out her heart about how she and the boy's father met, about her hopes for marriage and family, and about the unparalleled joy that having a baby has brought into her life.
As Katie reads this touching document, it becomes clear that the lover who has just left her is the husband and father in this young family. She reads on, filled with terror and hope, as she struggles to understand what has happened.
Written with James Patterson's perfect pitch for emotion and suspense, Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas captures beautifully the joys of a new family even as it builds to an overwhelmingly moving climax. This is an unforgettable love story, at once heartbreaking and full of hope.
Author Notes
James Patterson was born in Newburgh, New York, on March 22, 1947. He graduated from Manhattan College in 1969 and received a M. A. from Vanderbilt University in 1970. His first novel, The Thomas Berryman Number, was written while he was working in a mental institution and was rejected by 26 publishers before being published and winning the Edgar Award for Best First Mystery.
He is best known as the creator of Alex Cross, the police psychologist hero of such novels as Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls. Cross has been portrayed on the silver screen by Morgan Freeman. He has had eleven on his books made into movies and ranks as number 3 on the Hollywood Reporter's '25 Most Powerful Authors' 2016 list. He also writes the Women's Murder Club series, the Michael Bennett series, the Maximum Ride series, Daniel X series, the Witch and Wizard series, BookShots series, Private series, NYPD Red series, and the Middle School series for children. He has won numerous awards including the BCA Mystery Guild's Thriller of the Year, the International Thriller of the Year award, and the Reader's Digest Reader's Choice Award.
James Patterson introduced the Bookshots Series in 2016 which is advertised as All Thriller No Filler. The first book in the series, Cross Kill, made the New York Times Bestseller list in June 2016. The third and fourth books, The Trial, and Little Black Dress, made the New York Times Bestseller list in July 2016. The next books in the series include, $10,000,000 Marriage Proposal, French Kiss, Hidden: A Mitchum Story (co-authored with James O. Born). and The House Husband (co-authored Duane Swierczynski).
Patterson's novel, co-authored with Maxine Paetro, Woman of God, became a New York Times bestseller in 2016.
Patterson co-authored with John Connoly and Tim Malloy the true crime expose Filthy Rich about billionaire convicted sex offender Jeffrey Eppstein.
In January 2017, he co-authored with Ashwin Sanghi the bestseller Private Delhi. And in August 2017, he co-authored with Richard Dilallo, The Store.
The Black Book is a stand-alone thriller, co-authored by James Patterson and David Ellis.
In April 2018, he co-authored Texas Ranger with Andrew Bourelle.
In May 2018, he co-authored Private Princess with Rees Jones.
In August 2018 he co-authored Fifty Fifty with Candice Fox.
(Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Say what? A women's weepy from the megaselling author of the hard-boiled Alex Cross mysteries? Yes, and it's not the stretch some might imagine. Patterson has demonstrated his flair for female POV and characters in the stand-alone When the Wind Blows and in his current bestseller, 1st to Die and Cross himself has his gooey side. So how good is the novel? Good enough to lightly pluck the heartstrings and to impress with its craft and its calculation. As usual, Patterson mixes first- and third-person narration. Katie Wilkinson is a Manhattan book editor who's been inexplicably left by her lover and star author, a Martha's Vineyard poet named Matt. After he splits, Matt mails Katie the diary kept by his wife, Suzanne, for their young son. Katie reads it (the novel's extensive first-person passages) and reacts to it (briefer third-person interludes). The diary details how physician Suzanne, recovering from a heart attack at age 35, forsakes the rat race, moves to Martha's Vineyard and finds bliss with Matt, a housepainter who reads Moby-Dick and writes strong poems, and with their newborn son, Nicholas. The novel sloshes with sentiment (some of it quite icky) and simple spiritual truths, while acknowledging the reality of pain and loss: rose bushes galore, with thorns. Patterson sustains suspense through clever plotting and by Katie's wondering about the fate of Suzanne and Nicholas; what's finally revealed pushes her, and the novel, to a bittersweet conclusion. Patterson is one smart author (here, he dazzles with his use of refrains, stories-within-stories and romance novel tropes); this jump into another genre won't hurt his reputation as a master of popular lit. (July) Forecast: A lovely dust jacket featuring a title in violet script trumpets this as a love story. Will Patterson's fans buy it? Some mostly women yes. And a 12-city author tour and major print and TV publicity will draw in enough new fans, most of them also women, to float the title onto bestseller lists though not at Alex Cross numbers. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
For sheer genre-crossing audacity, you might think nothing could outdo John Grisham's season on a Mississippi farm (A Painted House, p. 128) until you read this relentlessly throat-clutching love story from thrillermeister Patterson. The night Matt Harrison's editor Katie Wilkinson presents him with a contract for his new book of poems, she has even bigger news for him: She's pregnant. But she never gets to show him the silver rattle she's tucked into a drawer, because before she can share her news, he's gently but firmly walked out on her, leaving her high and dry with only a book for company. It's a diary Matt's wife Suzanne kept for their baby son Nicholas, and if Katie reads it, Matt urges, she'll understand better why he had to leave. The diary does explain a great number of things-how lowly Matt managed to enthrall a successful Boston physician like Suzanne, why Suzanne thought it would be a good idea to keep a diary for her infant child, why "we is always so much better than I," why "one today is worth two tomorrows," and how a propulsive storyteller like Patterson (Roses Are Red, 2000, etc.) can keep the pot boiling even without the help of Alex Cross and a high body count-but not why Matt left Katie. What's really important, though, is that Katie is on hand for a series of interludes to telegraph exactly when to laugh and when to cry for audiences that missed The Prince of Tides and The Bridges of Madison County. A moving, and fast-moving, fable compounded about equally of tenderness, apothegms, doggerel, endearments, and mush. The ending, which makes nonsense of Matt's departure, suggests how severely Matt may have understated the case in warning that "there will be parts that may be hard for you to read."
Booklist Review
Patterson's latest novel is a departure from the thrillers he is known for, but his fans will be pleased to find fast-paced suspense in this love story. Katie Wilkinson is crazy about Matt Harrison, and she is surprised when, a year into their romance, he breaks it off. He leaves her with a diary to read, written by his first wife, Suzanne, for their son, Nicholas. In it, Suzanne tells her son about the time before she met Matt, when, while working as a doctor at a prestigious Boston hospital, she suffered a heart attack and, as a result, achieved a new perspective on life. She leaves Boston for Martha's Vineyard, where she opens a small practice. Suzanne is much happier in her new life, especially when she meets and falls in love with Matt, a dashing poet who works as a housepainter. Their marriage and the birth of their first child, Nicholas, are heaven-sent, but trouble is brewing ahead. As Katie continues to read the diary, she finds out what happened to Matt, Suzanne, and Nicholas, but the question remains as to whether Katie and Matt will end up together. Though there's not a murder to be found among the pages, Patterson's fans will find the familiar short chapters and surprising twists that they've come to expect from him, while those just looking for a good love story will find it here, too. --Kristine Huntley
Library Journal Review
Suzanne, a doctor, and her husband, Matthew, a house painter/poet, lived on Martha's Vineyard with their infant son, Nicholas. Suzanne kept a diary for Nicholas, chronicling their life together from the day she and Matthew met. When the story begins, Matthew has abruptly ended a deep and emotional affair with Katie, the New York editor of his collection of poems. He offers her Suzanne's diary as his only explanation, which she reads, searching for meaning. Well read by Becky Ann Baker, this book is as saccharine as The Bridges of Madison County, which Patterson alludes to in his text. Is he attempting a similar cry-your-eyes-out story, or does he mean this as a parody of the original? It's far from his usual thriller.-Joanna M. Burkhardt, Coll. of Continuing Education Lib., Univ. of Rhode Island, Providence (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
