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Summary
Summary
Hope Collins-Calder is beginning to lose her grip: she has a high-powered real estate job in the Hamptons that keeps her permanently stressed, an ex-husband she can't get out of her mind, a current husband she is beginning to regret, and three children who are running wild. When her latest child-care person leaves her in the lurch, she asks Eddie, her husband -- an Englishman hopelessly out of his depth working at an American publishing house -- if he will call his sister in London for the name of a good British nanny.
Annabel Quick arrives on the scene, but Mary Poppins she is not. Annabel is fifteen years older than Hope, unmarried, brokenhearted, and until a recent mysterious fire, lived with her mother all her adult life, She has come to the United States, and to this job, in search of a brief escape. And since Hope can't afford to be picky, Annabel gets the job.
Annabel sets about getting the Collins-Calder house in order, and finds to her surprise that as she does so, her own heart slowly begins to heal. When she meets Sheldon, a handsome local carpenter with penetrating blue eyes who has come to work on the house, she feels the stirring of emotions she thought she'd buried long ago. Sheldon's world offers Annabel a chance to move beyond the unhappiness that brought her to the United States in the first place. However, Annabel can't ignore the torch that Hope seems to carry for her ex, and as the summer unfolds, and marriages and old feelings are tes
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Upcher's lovers are all star-crossed in this with-it, literate sitcom about who's right for whom. Hope Collins, a high-powered Hamptons real estate agent, is married to husband number two, the helpless/hopeless but charming British Eddie Calder, an editor at a New York publishing house and the father of baby Booty. Hope has two older children eight-year-old Harry and six-year-old Coco by her bounder ex-husband, Craig, now a hotshot Hollywood producer. She still carries a torch for this stinker, who butters her up only so she'll come baby-sit the kids on the rare occasions they see him. Feeling the need for a Mary Poppins to set all right, Hope requires Eddie to find one, and his sister sends along 47-year-old Annabel Quick. Annabel has the training but hasn't worked as a nanny for years; her plan is to come to the U.S. to escape the shambles of her personal life in England. Will she straighten out the disastrous Collins-Calder household and find time for a bit of romance herself? This work is charming, if a bit light, with gentle befuddlement standing in for suspense. Though initially Hope seems to be quite the empty career woman, she grows on the reader, and the kids add a realistic dimension, as do in-law and co-worker problems. While Upcher's characters take a ridiculous amount of time to come to the obvious conclusions, this is still an entertaining ride. (June) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
British novelist Upcher, now based on Long Island, debuts here with the story of a real-estate agent and harried mother who hires a nanny-and finds happiness in the Hamptons. Hope Collins-Calder has houses to show and no time to waste, but she can't exactly do it with a baby on her hip. Second husband Eddie Calder is no help. An editor in Manhattan, he lives with her mother during the week and commutes to Amagansett on the weekends. The father of her first two children pens multimillion-dollar screenplays in southern California. What Hope needs is a modern-day Mary Poppins; what she gets is Annabel Quick. Annabel is English and highly trained, according to Eddie (who's also English). What more could anyone want? As it turns out, Annabel is not exactly what any of them had in mind. She's 47, and her experience with children is limited, despite a long-ago stint at a prestigious nanny academy. But Hope is desperate. Her son Harry, a very serious little boy, seems to think he's the man of the house; her daughter Coco is a holy terror. In Annabel's opinion, Coco is hopelessly spoiled, but Annabel keeps her opinions to herself. She's fleeing the emotional aftermath of a failed midlife love affair and her parents' death in a fire. Good old English common sense prevails as Annabel learns to take care of the children, although she quietly deplores the workaholic ways of their whippet-thin mother. Minor complications ensue when Hope pays too much attention to her visiting ex, provoking Eddie to commence an affair with his brassy office assistant. Keeping busy, the woebegone but winsome Annabel finds her own love interests: a kindly pediatrician and a hunky contractor who prefers older women. Everything works out eventually-and about as unpredictably as it would in real life. Upcher knits the various strands of this complicated plot very neatly indeed, deftly handling dual points of view and the inevitable cultural conflicts. A light touch and appealing style make for a standout beach-read.
Booklist Review
Upcher, author of many previous novels, including Falling for Mr. Wrong (1996), The Visitor's Book (1997), and Grace and Favor (1998), here follows the trials and tribulations of a wealthy family and their decadent lifestyle during one long summer in the Hamptons. Each chapter is narrated by a different member of the family: Hope Collins-Calder, a high-powered real-estate executive and mother of three children she never sees because of her demanding work life; her ex-husband, Craig, a smarmy Hollywood executive; Eddie, Hope's new and hopelessly unsophisticated husband; and the family's new British nanny, Annabel, whose own romantic woes make her a total incompetent as a caregiver. The not very likable family is falling apart, and as the summer unfolds, marriages are threatened, affairs are started, new friendships are developed, and old ones are tested. An inoffensive, enjoyable story that will especially appeal to fans of contemporary women's fiction or those looking for light summer fare. Kathleen Hughes
Library Journal Review
Hamptons real estate agent Hope Collins-Calder can't manage her own life, much less those of her three children four if you count husband No. 2. So, like many other upwardly mobile women, she enlists the services of a nanny. The latest entry in the daycare brigade is misfortune-prone Annabel Quick, late of Cornwall, England. A single and attractive 45, she gladly accepts the offer only to find herself in the midst of a live-action soap opera. Unhappily remarried to a Brit, Hope yearns for the first husband who abandoned her while the children run amuck. Meanwhile, Annabel is attracting men like flies. Since she's never been lucky in love, it doesn't surprise her that she falls for the least suitable candidate. Both Hope and Annabel, so dissimilar on the surface, learn that matters of the heart override logic. By turns touching and amusing, Upcher's fourth novel will make excellent beach reading. [The British-born Upcher once worked in the Hamptons as a nanny for director Mike Nichols. Ed.] Jodi L. Israel, MLS, Jamaica Plain, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
