Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas

June 4, 2001
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.

March 15, 2001
Here's a change of pace for Edgar Award winner Patterson, best known for thrillers like Along Came a Spider. Katie is heartbroken when her new love disappears, but it gets worse when she reads the diary he left with her.

Copyright 2001 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 15, 2001
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.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2001, American Library Association.)