Reviewing Nicholas Sparks' Latest, The Wish
Another stellar novel by the great Nicholas Sparks who just knows how to make my eyes tear up. The Wish tells the story of Maggie, a renowned travel photographer who is struggling to come to terms with a medical diagnosis. When her art gallery hires a young man to help out, the two begin to form an unconventional friendship and Maggie tells this man the story of Bryce, the one and only man she ever loved.
The audiobook was done by dual narrators who were both superb and were able to use Sparks’ words to draw me into this emotional but lovely story. I was so engrossed in listening to the book that the length of the novel was not noticeable at all to me.
The dual timelines were written well as Sparks is known to be a pro at and I was completely absorbed into Maggie’s life and what she went through as a teenager and as an adult.
Overall, this was a beautiful and engrossing tale of young love, loss, forgiveness and faith.
Thank you Hachette Audio for the advanced listening copy and Grand Central Publishing for the gifted book. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.
Book Description
1996 was the year that changed everything for Maggie Dawes. Sent away at sixteen to live with an aunt she barely knew in Ocracoke, a remote village on North Carolina’s Outer Banks, she could think only of the friends and family she left behind . . . until she meets Bryce Trickett, one of the few teenagers on the island. Handsome, genuine, and newly admitted to West Point, Bryce gradually shows her how much there is to love about the wind-swept beach town—and introduces her to photography, a passion that will define the rest of her life.
By 2019, Maggie is a renowned travel photographer. She splits her time between running a successful gallery in New York and photographing remote locations around the world. But this year she is unexpectedly grounded over Christmas, struggling to come to terms with a sobering medical diagnosis. Increasingly dependent on a young assistant, she finds herself becoming close to him.
As they count down the last days of the season together, she begins to tell him the story of another Christmas, decades earlier—and the love that set her on a course she never could have imagined.