One night can change a life. For eight-year-old Terry McQuinn, it was a snowy Christmas Eve on the coast of Maine, when Terry glimpsed a world he'd never seen before - the "summer people's" world unknown to the son of a caretaker. Serenity Cottage was a place of beauty and privilege owned by the luminous Halworths - but in the blink of an eye a tragic accident left the family in ruins.
Now thirty years later, Terry has spent his life putting distance between himself and his history. Determined not to follow in his father's footsteps, he became a high-flying Hollywood film agent - but has somehow lost himself along the way.
Terry is finally called back to Maine by the death of his father - but in the workshop Terry comes across a note in his father's hand that stops him cold: Open Serenity for Christmas.
No one has been in the house since that fateful night three decades earlier. Although Terry's first instinct is to leave it all behind, he soon discovers that Katherine Halworth, the girl from thirty years before, is the new owner. With her arrival imminent, Terry's past comes rushing back.
In the hands of critically acclaimed author Don J. Snyder, Fallen Angel is a warm and unique Christmas tale, reminding us it's never too late to forgive - and never too late to love.
Reviews
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Ian Peakes's low-key, low-pitched voice makes for a slow start, but as the story unfolds, his tone reflects the ennui of its main character, Hollywood-hardened Terry McQuinn. Terry has rejected his past as "the caretaker's son" and moved as far from Maine and his father as possible. When his father becomes gravely ill, he returns home. On his father's desk, he finds a message to "Open Serenity for Christmas." Memories of Serenity cottage and its owners, the Halworth family, flood in. He remembers the tragic accident that destroyed the family and the little girl that he cared for and comforted. Don J. Snyder's sweet novel is a romance about falling from grace, blindness, and redemption. Peakes's gentle, unobtrusive style makes it work. S.J.H. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine
About the Author
Don J. Snyder is the acclaimed author of Fallen Angel - a recent Hallmark Hall of Fame movie - The Cliff Walk, Of Time and Memory, and the novel Night Crossing, among other works. A passionate golfer, he lives in Scarborough, Maine, with his wife and four children.
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