In the middle of the night, the FBI appear at Heather Malone's home with an arrest warrant claiming she is actually a woman named Lisa Matlock. Lisa Matlock is wanted for a 15 year old murder.The town of Lake Henry is shocked. Nice, gentle Heather could not possibly be this woman that they are talking about. But as people begin to question the assertions of the FBI, they also begin to question themselves. Nobody really knows much about Heather's life before she appeared in Lake Henry 14 years ago. Not Micah, the man that she's been living with for the past several years and with whom she's made a life and built a business. Not Poppy, the woman who counts herself as Heather's best friend....This book is actually two stories in one. The main story is really Poppy & Griffin's love story. The secondary story is Heather's plight. As much as I liked this book (and I really did enjoy reading it) I only gave it three stars for several reasons:1) Poppy and Griffin's story is a welcome continuation of what was begun in Delinsky's earlier story set in Lake Henry, "Lake News." As such it is gratifying to catch up with Poppy again and see that she gets her guy. But, as nice as it is to see these two get together, their story wasn't as compelling as Heather's story. And because it wasn't as compelling, I became a little impatient at their passages because I couldn't wait to get back and see what new revelations there were about Heather.2) For all that Heather was a major catalyst to the story, that is all that she remained. She had no voice in this book. She was, for all intents and purposes, mute. She refused to talk about her past, and even when she did finally give Poppy a crumb, it was just three words and she mouthed it silently. I am sure that that was a conscious decision on Delinsky's part to keep Heather silent, so that we learned about her from other people. This worked really well for Delinsky in "Coast Road" where her heroine is in a coma and her family reflects on her life so that the only way the reader sees this pivotal character is through other characters eyes. Although I liked that technique in "Coast Road" I didn't like it so much here. I wanted the hear Heather.3) Call me a sucker for the Hollywood ending, but I wanted more closure. Heather's story was such a good one with a boffo surprise and a great ending. But that was it. It ended. I wanted follow-up, I wanted closure. I still have questions about what happened after all is revealed...I love Barbara Delinsky. She is really one of the best writers of contemporary, character driven fiction out there. And she's at her best when she's looking at the effect one person has on a whole community, as she did in "The Passions of Chelsea Kane." This was book was a good story. I think it would have been a great book if the Heather story had been the main focus and the Poppy story had been the secondary.
In the middle of the night, the FBI appear at Heather Malone's home with an arrest warrant claiming she is actually a woman named Lisa Matlock. Lisa Matlock is wanted for a 15 year old murder.The town of Lake Henry is shocked. Nice, gentle Heather could not possibly be this woman that they are talking about. But as people begin to question the assertions of the FBI, they also begin to question themselves. Nobody really knows much about Heather's life before she appeared in Lake Henry 14 years ago. Not Micah, the man that she's been living with for the past several years and with whom she's made a life and built a business. Not Poppy, the woman who counts herself as Heather's best friend....This book is actually two stories in one. The main story is really Poppy & Griffin's love story. The secondary story is Heather's plight. As much as I liked this book (and I really did enjoy reading it) I only gave it three stars for several reasons:1) Poppy and Griffin's story is a welcome continuation of what was begun in Delinsky's earlier story set in Lake Henry, "Lake News." As such it is gratifying to catch up with Poppy again and see that she gets her guy. But, as nice as it is to see these two get together, their story wasn't as compelling as Heather's story. And because it wasn't as compelling, I became a little impatient at their passages because I couldn't wait to get back and see what new revelations there were about Heather.2) For all that Heather was a major catalyst to the story, that is all that she remained. She had no voice in this book. She was, for all intents and purposes, mute. She refused to talk about her past, and even when she did finally give Poppy a crumb, it was just three words and she mouthed it silently. I am sure that that was a conscious decision on Delinsky's part to keep Heather silent, so that we learned about her from other people. This worked really well for Delinsky in "Coast Road" where her heroine is in a coma and her family reflects on her life so that the only way the reader sees this pivotal character is through other characters eyes.
What do You think about An Accidental Woman (2002)?
This was a fairly well constructed book, but a bit too tame to be my cup of tea. We have a sweet love story of Poppy, who is a paraplegic due to an accident that left another dead, for which she had not forgiven herself. A writer fell for her, and Delinsky distracts us with a legal thriller subplot as their story unfolds.I felt the subplot detracted from the theme of forgiveness, but I did like the description in that subplot of how maple sugar is now made. (I got the basics reading Little House in the Big Woods). The chemistry remains the same, but modern agriculture, sugarbush management, and the new technology for collecting sap are described.I also liked Delinsky's device of having the hero acquire a blind cat who adopts the heroine. The cat's acceptance of its disability and its fearlessness in exploring its new environment and trying new things are used by the author to teach Poppy an object lesson, which I thought was great.Also, Delinsky gave the subplot almost as much attention as the main plot, at times I wasn't sure which was primary. Another weakness of the book is that one needs to have read Lake News first. The secondary characters are introduced, described, and fully fleshed out in that book, in this one they are merely mentioned. We are not given enough to understand their motives in An Accidental Woman. It seems as if the entire book and Lake News were one large book, and some editor chopped them into two. For best enjoyment, read them consecutively.
—Mollie *scoutrmom*
I thought the hero of the piece was nicely drawn. However, despite Ms. Delinski's avowal that she'd spent a lot of time researching life in a chair, as well as actually (gasp!) talking to wheeler women, the heroine (?) comes off as a big whiner.It comes as no surprise that:1) It's hard to use a wheelchair in the snow.2) If you're a wheeler, you can bet that not even your best friends will live in a place accessible to you.At least Delinski avoids the horrible cliche of the heroine walking again with no mobility aids.What's truly odd about this book is that the first character we meet is charged with murder, thrown into jail, and the author spends very little of time dealing with that. And the jailbird's husband is hopelessly hard and obsessed with his work.
—Becs
The main plot of this story is of a seemingly ordinary good woman being arrested for a murder in another state about 15 years before. However, other people in the novel also have pasts and guilt connected with those pasts. The best friend of the arrested woman is confined to a wheel chair, but she is determined to help. The mystery of who Heather was in the past, the challenges of wheelchair living, the work of maple syrup gathering, and making up for past mistakes all fill this book. It kept me reading, and I'm glad I read this book. I don't like some of Barbara Delinsky's earliest novels as they have a feel of pulp fiction, but some of her later ones such as this one have a lot of thought provoking ideas. The theme of this novel seems to be past mistakes and forgiveness, including self-forgiveness. The love interest is also great!
—Rrshively
