Hope Springs (Hope Springs Series #2)

From Barnes & Noble

Readers of Friendship Cake, rejoice. The women of Hope Springs Church have finished their cookbook and have now begun to cultivate the garden of the friendship in full earnest. A charming novel about characters who possess the immediacy of friends.

Jacquelyn Mitchard

"…an anthem to friendship….. To miss it is to deny yourself a small treasure."

Philip Gulley

"...a beautiful story grows side by side with powerful truth. It caused my soul to bloom."

Ann Howard Creel

"Hinton celebrates the power of women’s connections through a story about hope, loss, and the sometimes fragile nature of faith

Suzann Ledbetter

"It’s a ‘giver’ readers will want to buy and share with mothers, daughters, sisters and special, forever friends."

Loraine Despres

"For all those who loved Friendship Cake, Garden of Faith will be like a garden party with old friends."

Sue Monk Kidd

"Garden of Faith is a lovely novel filled with hope."

Brenda Jernigan

"With a loving eye for her characters, Lynne Hinton tells a gentle story of faith, healing and redemption."

Lois Battle

"If books had a taste, this one would be the genuine tangy sweetness of a small homegrown strawberry."

Winston-Salem Journal

"Vintage Hinton...thoughtful and exploratory...challenges the reader to be still and...to live completely, even when it hurts."

Greensboro News & Record

"Hinton’s writing style is similar to Eudora Welty’s: easy, conversational, down-home….reverberates with rhythm and lyricism."

Publishers Weekly

Like Rebecca Wells in Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood, Hinton has a knack in her novels for tapping into a woman's longings for lifelong, authentic, messy friendships. In this engaging follow-up to The Friendship Cake, Hinton picks up the threads of the lives of the five quirky women who make up the North Carolina Hope Springs Community Church cookbook committee and spins out more of their stories. She hangs her narrative on gardening as a metaphor for life, occasionally succumbing to clich s ("They were rough and spindly souls with very shallow roots"), but usually handling the theme with subtlety. There's plenty of room for metaphor. Pastor Charlotte finds she has lost her faith as she attempts to help Brittany's mother, Nadine, recover from her second suicide attempt. Louise ponders grief and love; Bea enjoys her newlywed status; Margaret wrangles with breast cancer; and Jessie battles fear that James will abandon her again and agonizes over a possible move. Hinton admirably mixes poignant moments (the friends shaving their heads in solidarity with Margaret) with amusing incidents (Louise notes, "This tea tastes like shit, Beatrice" and discovers it's Easy Movement, a laxative drink). While she avoids tendering pat answers to difficult questions of faith, Hinton folds themes of hope and redemption into her story. Conservative CBA readers may shrink from such expletives as "Jesus!" or "horseshit!"; Louise's lesbian status; feminine gender references to God; or the occasional sexual description but many readers of faith should find this novel both entertaining and tender. (Apr.) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.\