Publishers Weekly
03/13/2023
Goldberg Sloan (I’ll Be There) captures the resilience of a widow seeking to provide stability for her children in this emotional contemporary romance. After Lindsey Hill’s husband, Paul, disappears—and presumably drowns—in a surfing accident, Lindsey untangles the financial fallout of Paul’s struggling tech company’s demise and takes a chance at rebuilding her family’s life by buying a remote Hawaiian motel, sight unseen, with Paul’s life insurance money. The angst of solo parenting three children—14-year-old Olivia, 12-year-old Carlos, and seven-year-old Sena—coupled with a lack of experience at motel management proves difficult. Enter Chris Young, who stayed at the motel with his wife before she died from cancer and offers to help Lindsey make some much needed repairs. Lindsey is surprised to feel the spark of attraction long missing from her life—but nothing is as simple as it seems, and Chris has some secrets of his own. Empathetic yet flawed characters navigating deep, painful problems add authenticity to the resonant story, and the mystery of Paul’s disappearance keeps things tense. Readers will devour this in one sitting. Agent: Amy Berkower, Writers House. (May)
From the Publisher
Praise for Pieces of Blue
A Best Book of Summer (The New York Times Book Review, The Washington Post)
A Most Anticipated Book (Oprah Daily, LitHub, BookRiot, Library Journal, SheReads, BookReporter, BookShop)
“A fast-paced, atmospheric charmer…The novel’s best feature is Sloan’s poignant and amusing glimpses into the children’s interior lives as they grieve and build new lives for themselves.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“A book about grit and healing, Pieces of Blue is a celebration of the sharp turns families are often forced to make, and how the knots make you stronger.”
—Washington Post
"Bursting with humor, chaos, and raw tenderness, Sloan’s portrait of grief is as refreshing as it is unflinching."
—Oprah Daily
“As tropical storms so often change course, catching those in their paths unprepared, Sloan has crafted a novel that is as surprising as it is haunting…Pieces of Blue reminds us that if one stands long enough under a dark, ominous sky, some much-needed light will eventually shine through.”
—Wellesley Magazine
“A heartfelt page-turner… With a setting so perfectly crafted, these characters are able to live and breathe on the page, which makes for fast reading that never loses your attention… Pieces of Blue is every bit as big-hearted as her books for young readers, but with a keen, sharp sensitivity that gives the same amount of weight and attention to its adult characters.”
—BookReporter
“Big-hearted…[A] warm and welcoming story of a family's emotional and often humorous recovery. Sloan skillfully balances the perspectives of Lindsey with each of her three children, imbuing the characters with the kind of personality details and gentle eccentricities that have made her family dramas shine. But undergirding these tender characters and their individual and collective turmoil is a winking sense of humor that reassures readers that things for the Hill family will work out—despite some unexpected (and they are unexpected) twists along the way.”
—Shelf Awareness
“Empathetic yet flawed characters navigating deep, painful problems add authenticity to the resonant story, and the mystery of Paul’s disappearance keeps things tense. Readers will devour this in one sitting.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Sloan writes about the entire family with energy, insight, and humor.”
—Kirkus
“Pieces of Blue is as propulsive as it is observant and atmospheric. Sloan understands her characters deeply, and makes us need to know what happens to them. In fact, a lot happens to them, and we want to know it all. This novel is a family story, a love story, and a mystery. I couldn't put it down.”
—Meg Wolitzer, New York Times bestselling author of The Female Persuasion
"Pieces of Blue is a brilliant and bighearted page-turner."
—Maria Semple, New York Times bestselling author of Where'd You Go, Bernadette
"I loved this book! Pieces of Blue is a poetic, lush and poignant portrayal of a wounded family seeking healing, love and redemption."
—Gigi Levangie, New York Times bestselling author of The Starter Wife
“Struggling with grief, daring to hope, and working to make a wild, gorgeous, and mysterious place their home, each beautifully drawn character comes alive and finds a way into your heart. Pieces of Blue is a powerful, tender novel with a mystery at its heart. Don’t miss it!”
—Lisa Unger, New York Times bestselling author of Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six
Kirkus Reviews
2023-02-24
What starts as a typical self-empowerment novel about a family attempting to start a new life in Hawaii after tragedy takes some unexpected noirish turns midway through.
Two years after her husband Paul’s drowning in Oregon, Welsh-born Lindsey Hill moves with her three children to Hawaii, where she’s purchased a motel—sight unseen—with life insurance money that's finally been paid out after Paul's surfing death was ruled accidental. Still grieving Paul, Lindsey is also contending with the chaos his financial failures caused in the months before he died. Sloan writes about the entire family with energy, insight, and humor (like the physical comedy surrounding the aged Crown Victoria that Lindsey rents the first day, crashes before exiting the rental agency’s parking lot, and ends up buying). Of course the Mau Loa Motel turns out to be beautiful but more run-down than Lindsey expected; of course she is emotionally numb until a handsome stranger shows up and helps with repairs while stirring her heartstrings; of course 14-year-old Olivia has trouble adjusting to high school until she meets a boy and his brother, while 7-year-old animal lover Sena is uber-precocious and 12-year-old Carlos is a sensitive pleaser who covers his own pain while protecting the others. Slowly they start recovering in all the conventional ways before Sloan shifts gears to include elements of crime fiction. Unfortunately, the plotting, while less predictable than a standard domestic dramedy, becomes more stilted as the male characters, who never quite gel, take prominent roles. It turns out that the men in Lindsey’s life have not always been what they seem, a truth her children figure out before she does. A raging storm bearing down on the motel with everyone inside becomes the novel’s piece de resistance and raises the stakes for everyone involved, including readers, before a disappointingly easy denouement.
An often enjoyable but uneven mix of romance, domesticity, and action.
