No Place Like Home

by Barbara O'Neal and Barbara Samuel

Book Overview

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• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345445651
• ISBN13: 9780345445650
• Release Date: January 2002
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 304 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.4" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

I missed this book the second I finished it!

Have you ever read a book and then felt regret when you finish it? This is the book that evokes that response in me. I laughed, I cried and I never wanted it to end! Simply....a great book!

A superb book-what romance and modern fiction should be

I loved this book. It's not often a novel makes me cry, with this one I couldn' t stop crying, but laughing too. Jewel the heroine has such a wry way of looking at the world that we can identify with her easily, yet she is full of love and does her best to cope like everyone else with some horrendous circumstances. Hers is compelling first-person narrative and the talented author gives her a very strong voice, part comedian part earth goddess, all woman.Every character is a little jewel that sparkles, and the hunky heartthrob Malachi is even to melt your bones. The love secnes are wonderful--only wish there had been more!! A beautifully written book-I couldn't put it down, raced to the end and then re-read the whole thing to really savor it. I will definitely be reading more by this fabulous author.

wonderful, moving book

I thoroughly enjoyed this book -- reminded me of Luanne Rice, Deborah Smith. My only complaint is that I wished it were longer! I wanted to stay in that town, with those characters for a while.

Samuels' Breakout Novel Into Genre Blended Fiction

Barbara Samuels is probably known solely to romance readers under both that name and her pen name of Ruth Wind. She's had a loyal following for years led by Ellen Michelletti over at All About Romance. Ellen has kept after me for years about this author's ability as a writer and, although I thought Samuels was very good, I never thought she had the star potential Ellen did. Well, I was wrong and Ellen was right and this novel is the proof. (Ellen also proved me wrong on author Carla Kelly so I think I may be done arguing with Ellen over writers.) I think what Samuels does here that catapaults her into worthy consideration for all fiction readers is her adoption of a first person narrative voice. Prior to this, she always used third person. First person lets Samuels impart a heck of an emotional wallop with her work. Her character is Jewel Sabatino, from a Sicilian family in Pueblo, Colorado, who has been estranged from her father for two decades because of her running away with a musician while she was a senior in high school. She returns to Pueblo with her best friend Michael, who is dying of AIDS, her 17 year old son, Sean, by the musician (who died of a drug overdose as predicted by her father) and is joined by Michael's brother, Malachi, who becomes her love interest. The strong lead character throughout is Jewel and the conflicts, thoughts and tensions in her life are rendered perfectly. She also deals with her reflections over her mistakes from the past and the hand she has left to play in life on the other side of forty. That her body is no longer what it was and that she has to jump start a career are real world concerns well handled. The thoughts Jewel has throughout are so universal to contemporary women that you will think Samuels is transcribing your own thoughts. A source of considerable conflict throughout for several key characters including Jewel is what to do about internalized conflicts with parents, how to resolve them and get on with one's life so that one doesn't keep just replaying that early melodrama as one's entire life. Talk about a rich field to mine in writing! I think Samuels has hit upon a huge vein there that resonates with the reading public. Patricia Gaffney is another author who moved into fiction from romance. Gaffney wrote/writes superbly in both. I think Samuels is in a class with Gaffney. I think both of them are a million times better than Barbara Delinksy or Sandra Brown, who broke out of the romance genre years earlier and are now huge bestselling fiction authors. I also prefer Samuels and Gaffney to Nora Roberts, who remains in the romance genre as an enormous bestselling author. One final note: being from an Italian Catholic heritage myself I give Samuels credit for faithfully capturing that American subculture, both the feminine and masculine parts of it. I assume it must be her own heritage for her to have caught it this perfectly.