In her novel “Hannah’s List,” Debbie Macomber explores the relationship between losing someone you love and finding love again.
Macomber tells a tale about a man, Dr. Michael Everett, whose wife, Hannah, loses her battle with cancer and dies. A year later, his brother-in-law gives Michael a letter that Hannah had written to him a year earlier. In her letter she reminds Michael how much she loves him, the usual last words, but that is not the only thing she asks of him.
In Hannah’s letter she also gives him the names of three women. These are the women that Hannah has handpicked for Michael, the women that she wanted him to start dating and hopefully, he would fall in love with one of them and marry again. The women she leads him to are all women that are going through problems of their own.
Readers witness the characters interact and unintentionally help each other heal, and it is truly amazing.
This is an incredible novel that will keep the reader engaged from the first paragraph. Macomber knows the perfect ways to draw in the readers and keep them begging for more and more. She leads them through the heartbreak that Michael feels and she makes the emotional battle that Michael goes through touch every reader, whether they know the actual pain or not. The reader experiences the pain, the love, the conflict with Michael and makes that connection with the character that much more real.
She also makes the emotional connection of the reader with the women he falls for so incredibly strong that the reader is constantly cheering them on. Macomber really has a talent with establishing emotional connections.
Jacqueline Valentino is a fourth-year student majoring in English with a minor in journalism. She can be reached at JV671648@wcupa.edu.