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Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

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Overview

Katie Wilkinson has found her perfect man at last. He's a writer, 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. In it she pours out her heart about how she and her child'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-and whether her new love has a prayer of surviving.

Editorial Reviews

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. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information. -- PUBLISHERS WEEKLY.

Author Information

Bio of James Patterson

The subject of a recent Time magazine feature called, "The Man Who Can't Miss," James Patterson is the bestselling author of the past year, bar none, with more than 16 million books sold in North America alone. In 2007, one of every 15 hardcover fiction books sold was a Patterson title. In total, James's books have sold an estimated 150 million copies worldwide. He is the first author to have #1 new titles simultaneously on The New York Times adult and children's lists and is the only author to have five new hardcover novels debut at #1 on the list in one year -- a record-breaking feat he's accomplished every year since 2005. To date, James Patterson has had nineteen consecutive #1 New York Times Bestselling Novels, and holds the New York Times record for most bestselling titles by a single author (40 total). Patterson is a champion of reading and the founder of the PageTurner awards, which seek to spread the excitement and joy of books and reading in the United States. James's first foray into family fiction, the critically acclaimed Maximum Ride series, debuted on the New York Times list at #1 and remained there for 12 straight weeks. The series has so far made appearances on The New York Times bestsellers lists 87 times, proving that kids of all ages love page turners. Patterson is the creator of the #1 new detective series of the past dozen years, featuring "Alex Cross" and including the Hollywood-adapted "Along Came a Spider" and "Kiss the Girls," starring Academy Award-winning actor Morgan Freeman. He is also the creator of the #1 new detective series of the past five years, featuring Lindsay Boxer and the other members of the Women's Murder Club, from which the ABC television drama series is adapted. He has authored books behind six films on the Hollywood fast-track, including the upcoming Maximum Ride movie from Avi Arad, the producer of X-Men and Spiderman. Most recently, New Regency Pictures has optioned The Dangerous Days of Daniel X, James's newest family Pageturner due out in July of 2008. He is the author of novels -- from The Thomas Berryman Number (1976) to Honeymoon (2005) -- that have won awards including the Edgar, 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. One of Forbes magazine's Celebrity 100, James appeared as a guest star on the popular FOX TV show "The Simpsons" in March, 2007.

Customer Reviews

  • 5 stars out of 5One of James Patterson's best

    Posted January 14, 2009 by Bird, Barrie, Ontario

    This book is a very quick read... and will have you hooked from page one. One of my favourite books.

  • 4 stars out of 5Nice

    Posted June 03, 2009 by New Reader, Findlay

    A bit too predictable but nice.

  • 4 stars out of 5Yes, this is a love story... and a good one

    Posted September 01, 2009 by Danielle, Montreal

    I just love the way the book is written, from the diary section to the narrator. You feel that you want to meet the different characters.

Additional Info

Imprint

Hachette Book Group USA

Filesize

1.86 MB

Number of Pages

304

eBook ISBN

9780316008426

Excerpt from: Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas by James Patterson

KATIE WILKINSON sat in warm bathwater in the weird but wonderful old-fashioned porcelain tub in her New York apartment. The apartment exuded "old" and "worn" in ways that practitioners of shabby chic couldn't begin to imagine. Katie's Persian cat, Guinevere, looking like a favorite gray wool sweater, was perched on the sink. Her black Labrador, Merlin, sat in the doorway leading to the bedroom. They watched Katie as if they were afraid for her.
She lowered her head when she finished reading the diary and set the leatherbound book on the wooden stool beside the tub. Her body shivered. Then she started to sob, and Katie saw that her hands were shaking. She was losing it, and she didn't lose it often. She was a strong person, and always had been. Katie whispered words she'd once heard in her father's church in Asheboro, North Carolina. "Oh, Lord, oh, Lord, are you anywhere, my Lord?"
She could never have imagined that this small volume would have such a disturbing effect on her. Of course, it wasn't just the diary that had forced her into this state of confusion and duress.
No, it wasn't just Suzanne's diary for Nicholas.
She visualized Suzanne in her mind. Katie saw her at her quaint cottage on Beach Road on Martha's Vineyard.
Then little Nicholas. Twelve months old, with the most brilliant blue eyes.
And finally, Matt.
Nicholas's daddy.
Suzanne's husband.
And Katie's former lover.
What did she think of Matt now? Could she ever forgive him? She wasn't sure. But at least she finally understood some of what had happened. The diary had told her bits and pieces of what she needed to know, as well as deep, painful secrets that maybe she didn't need to know.
Katie slipped down farther into the water, and found herself thinking back to the day she had received the diary July 19.
Remembering the day started her crying again.
ON THE morning of the nineteenth, Katie had felt drawn to the Hudson River, and then to the Circle Line, the boat ride around Manhattan Island that she and Matt had first taken as a total goof but had enjoyed so much that they kept coming back.
She boarded the first boat of the day. She was feeling sad, but also angry. Oh, God, she didn't know what she was feeling.
The early boat wasn't too crowded with tourists. She took a seat near the rail of the upper deck and watched New York from the unique vantage point of the brooding waterways surrounding it.
A few people noticed her sitting there alone especially the men.
Katie usually stood out in a crowd. She was tall almost six feet, with warm, friendly blue eyes. She had always thought of herself as gawky and felt that people were staring at her for all the wrong reasons. Her friends begged to differ; they said she was close to breathtaking, stunning in her strength. Katie always responded, "Uh-huh, sure, don't I wish." She didn't see herself that way and knew she never would. She was an ordinary, regular person. A North Carolina farm girl at heart.