What Matters Most

published	July 17th 2007 by Bantam
binding	Hardcover
isbn	0553805339 (isbn13: 9780553805338)
ebook
pages	352
description	With every New York Times bestseller, Luanne Rice illuminates yet another of the secret wonders of the heart. Her unforgettable evocations of f...more [close] With every New York Times bestseller, Luanne Rice illuminates yet another of the secret wonders of the heart. Her unforgettable evocations of family, friendship, and loves lost and won in such novels as The Edge of Winter, Sandcastles, and Summer of Roses give voice to our most powerful emotions. Now she brings back two of her most beloved characters to tell of their journey across the sea to unravel the mysteries of a shared past—and two undying love affairs.… What Matters Most Sister Bernadette Ignatius has returned to Ireland in the company of Tom Kelly to search for the past—and the son—they left behind. For it was here that these two long-ago lovers spent a season of magic before Bernadette’s calling led her to a vocation as Mother Superior at Star of the Sea Academy on the sea-tossed Connecticut shore. For Tom, Bernadette’s choice meant giving up his fortune and taking the job as caretaker at Star of the Sea, where he could be close to the woman he could no longer have but whom he never stopped loving. And while one miracle drew them apart, another is about to bring them together again. For somewhere in Dublin a young man named Seamus Sullivan is also on a search, dreaming of being reunited with his own first love, the only “family” he’s ever known. They’d been inseparable growing up together at St. Augustine’s Children’s Home, until Kathleen Murphy’s parents claimed her and she vanished across the sea to America. Now, in a Newport mansion, that very girl, grown to womanhood, works as a maid and waits with a faith that defies all reason for the miracle that will bring back the only boy she’s ever loved. That miracle is at hand—but like most miracles, it can come only after the darkest of nights and the deepest of heartbreaks. For life can be as precarious as a walk along a cliff, and its greatest rewards reached only by those who dare to risk everything…for what matters most. [close]
date added	03-09-07 edit book

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04/19/08

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Although Bernadette is in love with her childhood friend Tom, she believes her vocation to the church comes first so insists on giving up their illegitimate child for adoption in Ireland (presumably in the 70s). She then becomes a nun (also in Ireland, although she is American and mysteriously ends up back in Connecticut where she ends up running a branch of her order) and Tom, strangely, becomes the groundskeeper on what was once his family's estate before it became a convent. Oddly, one would...more Although Bernadette is in love with her childhood friend Tom, she believes her vocation to the church comes first so insists on giving up their illegitimate child for adoption in Ireland (presumably in the 70s). She then becomes a nun (also in Ireland, although she is American and mysteriously ends up back in Connecticut where she ends up running a branch of her order) and Tom, strangely, becomes the groundskeeper on what was once his family's estate before it became a convent. Oddly, one would think Tom could have insisted on raising his child himself, even if it was contrary to what Bernadette wanted and perhaps before it was common for a father's adoption rights to be considered (and in this case, he reluctantly agreed to Bernadette's wishes). It takes nearly 25 years for Bernadette to investigate what happened to her son. When she eventually finds him, she is surprised and hurt that he is angry with her for abandoning him.

In the meantime, her son James grows up in an orphanage, also with a devoted childhood friend who is his true love, Kathleen (childhood friendships are a recurring theme in Rice's books). Improbably, Kathleen's parents retrieve her from the orphanage when she is 13 so she ends up in America also, but oddly, working for an unpleasant but affluent family in Newport, where she is the cook by day but by night has sex with the vicious elder son of the house. I think one is meant to understand that she misses James so much and feels she let him down by leaving the orphanage that she a) is so lonely she craves contact with anyone, and b) feels she doesn't deserve anything better than meaningless contact with vicious son. But it is unclear why, instead of cowering in the unheated attic, someone in her early 20s doesn't get a better job where she might meet someone her own age or (if she feels so unworthy) why she doesn't hire an investigator to find James in Ireland if she cannot locate him online. Granted, being named Sullivan and Murphy will not help them locate each other and we do need a plot.

As always, Rice creates interesting characters and vivid descriptions but here her two heroines were so annoying that it prevented me from enjoying the book, which Rice had kindly autographed for me in June....less

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What Matters Most

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