Sign up for our newsletters to receive our Best of 2024 ezine!

Book Summary and Reviews of Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

Magic Hour

by Kristin Hannah

  • Critics' Consensus (1):
  • Readers' Rating (1):
  • Published:
  • Feb 2006, 416 pages
  • Rate this book

About this book

Book Summary

Until recently, Dr. Julia Cates was one of the preeminent child psychiatrists in the country, but a scandal shattered her confidence, ruined her career, and made her a media target. When she gets a desperate call from her estranged sister, Ellie, a police chief in their small western Washington hometown, she jumps at the chance to escape.

In Rain Valley, nothing much ever happens – until a girl emerges from the deep woods and walks into town. She is a victim unlike any Julia has ever seen: a child locked in a world of unimaginable fear and isolation.

For Julia, who has come to doubt her own ability, nothing is more important than saving the girl she now calls Alice. Then a shocking revelation forces Julia to risk everything to discover the truth about Alice. The ordeal that follows will test the limits of Julia’s faith, forgiveness, and love, as she struggles to ascertain where Alice ultimately belongs.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Reviews

Media Reviews

"Hannah's melodramatic 15th novel tells the addictive soap opera story of a feral child and the adults who rally to help her." - PW.
"One of this perennially best-selling writer's most compelling and riveting novels to date." - Booklist.

This information about Magic Hour was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

Write your own reviewwrite your own review

Pixieraeblue

Compelling and dynamic
Was she lost or stolen? A 6-year-old girl emerges alone from the Pacific north woods and is locked in her own world of isolation. She is speechless; unable to offer any clues to her identity or hints about how she has survived. Rumors fly while the media descends on the small town where police chief Ellie has called a renowned child psychiatrist, her estranged sister Dr. Julia Cates, to help. Ellie doesn't know Julia's confidence has been shaken by a recent lawsuit and authorities challenge Julia's competence, but Julia is determined to save the little girl she calls Alice. As Ellie and Julia struggle to uncover Alice's story and where she belongs, their faith is tested to the limit. Their hope is triumphant. The story has a perfect ending.

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Author Information

Kristin Hannah Author Biography

Photo: Charles Bush

Kristin Hannah is an award-winning international number one bestselling author with over 25 million copies of her books sold worldwide. Her most recent titles, The Four Winds, The Nightingale and The Great Alone won numerous best fiction awards and her earlier novel, Firefly Lane, is currently a bestselling series on Netflix. Kristin is a lawyer-turned-writer and is the mother of one son. She and her husband live in the Pacific Northwest near Seattle.

Author Interview
Link to Kristin Hannah's Website

Other books by Kristin Hannah at BookBrowse
  • The Women jacket
  • The Nightingale jacket

12 more...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

More Recommendations

Readers Also Browsed . . .

more literary fiction...

Membership Advantages
  • Reviews
  • "Beyond the Book" articles
  • Free books to read and review (US only)
  • Find books by time period, setting & theme
  • Read-alike suggestions by book and author
  • Book club discussions
  • and much more!
  • Just $45 for 12 months or $15 for 3 months.
  • More about membership!

Top Picks

  • Book Jacket: Small Rain
    Small Rain
    by Garth Greenwell
    At the beginning of Garth Greenwell's novel Small Rain, the protagonist, an unnamed poet in his ...
  • Book Jacket: Daughters of Shandong
    Daughters of Shandong
    by Eve J. Chung
    Daughters of Shandong is the debut novel of Eve J. Chung, a human rights lawyer living in New York. ...
  • Book Jacket: The Women
    The Women
    by Kristin Hannah
    Kristin Hannah's latest historical epic, The Women, is a story of how a war shaped a generation ...
  • Book Jacket: The Wide Wide Sea
    The Wide Wide Sea
    by Hampton Sides
    By 1775, 48-year-old Captain James Cook had completed two highly successful voyages of discovery and...

BookBrowse Book Club

Book Jacket
In Our Midst
by Nancy Jensen
In Our Midst follows a German immigrant family’s fight for freedom after their internment post–Pearl Harbor.
Who Said...

I like a thin book because it will steady a table...

Click Here to find out who said this, as well as discovering other famous literary quotes!

Wordplay

Big Holiday Wordplay 2024

Enter Now

Your guide toexceptional          books

BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.