#49 [2025/CBR17] Magic Hour by Kristin Hannah

I thought I'd been listening to Kristin Hannah's latest novel, Magic Hour, but now that I'm writing the review, I just realized it was written back in 2006--so, almost twenty years ago and definitely not her latest novel. I'm a little late to this party. I've read a number of Hannah's novels. Some of them I've really liked, and others I've found too contrived and I got annoyed. I was immediately drawn into this one, though, and I'm glad I read it.

A young, malnourished girl wanders into a small town in the Pacific Northwest, near Olympic National Forest. She is terrified, cannot talk, has unexplained injuries, and seems to be friends with a young wolf. The sheriff of the town is a 39-year-old woman, Ellie. They are able to capture the young girl, but they have no idea what to do with her. Ellie calls her younger sister, Julia, in Los Angeles for help.

Julia Cates is a renowned child psychiatrist who is dealing with her own demons. One of her teenage clients shot and killed some other children before killing herself. The families and the media are blaming her, and Julia has lost all of her clients. She is beginning to even doubt herself. But when she sees that little girl who needs so much help in order to not get lost forever in the system, she is determined to do everything she can.

Julia spends all of her time with the little girl they begin to call Alice. Slowly, Alice starts trusting Julia, and she makes great progress. Along with this main story, there is the somewhat strained relationship between Ellie and Julia, and the possible love connections for both Julia and Ellie. For me, the main driver of the story was Alice and her recovery. Although I also appreciated seeing the sisters understand each other better, the love stories didn't feel necessary for the book. 

***SPOILERS***

After a heyday of publicity when Alice was first found, no one has come forward to claim her. The more Julia works with Alice, the more she knows she could never leave her. She asks her attorney to start working on adopting her. Suddenly, George enters the picture. He is Alice's father, just recently released from prison on appeal for the murder of his wife and daughter. He is rich and a little selfish, but he is no murderer. He's been unjustly imprisoned for years and thought his wife and daughter were gone forever.

The courts decided that Alice needed to go with her father, and in a scene that had me bawling, her father takes her away from Julia. Fortunately for Julia and Alice, George quickly decides he can't parent Alice and he brings her back. 

***END SPOILERS***

The story of the lost little girl coming out of the woods and her slow recovery immediately grabbed my attention. This was not a hard book to read. At times this book may have felt more like a fairy tale than something that could happen in real life, but I enjoyed it.