The Third Angel: A Novel (Hardcover)

This title will be released on April 8, 2008. Pre-order now!

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this elegant and stunning novel, veteran heartstring-puller Hoffman (Here on Earth; Seventh Heaven) examines the lives of three women at different crossroads in their lives, tying their London-centered stories together in devastating retrospect. High powered New York attorney Maddy Heller arrives in 1999 London having had an affair with Paul, her sister Allie's fiancé,; she must now cope with the impending marriage, and with Paul's terminal illness—which echoes the girls' mother's cancer during their childhood. Hoffman then shifts to heady 1966 London and to Frieda Lewis, Paul's future mother, who falls for a doomed up-and-coming songwriter knowing he will break her heart. The narrative then shifts further back, to 1952 and to Maddy and Allie's future mother, Lucy Green. A bookish 12-year-old wise beyond her years, Lucy sails with her father and stepmother from New York to London for a wedding. There, she becomes an innocent catalyst to a devastating event involving a love triangle. Hoffman interweaves the three stories, gazing unerringly into forces that cause some people to self-destruct (There was no such thing as too much for a girl who thought she was second best) and others to find inner strength to last a lifetime. (Apr.)

Review

“Alice Hoffman is my favorite writer.” —Jodi Picoult

“A reader is in good hands with Alice Hoffman, able to count on many pleasures. She is one of our quirkiest and most interesting novelists, and her skills increase with every new book.”
—Jane Smiley, USA Today

"In this elegant and stunning novel, veteran heartstring-puller Hoffman (Here on Earth; Seventh Heaven) examines the lives of three women at different crossroads in their lives, tying their London-centered stories together in devastating retrospect. High powered New York attorney Maddy Heller arrives in 1999 London having had an affair with Paul, her sister Allie’s fiancé,; she must now cope with the impending marriage, and with Paul’s terminal illness–which echoes the girls’ mother’s cancer during their childhood. Hoffman then shifts to heady 1966 London and to Frieda Lewis, Paul’s future mother, who falls for a doomed up-and-coming songwriter knowing he will break her heart. The narrative then shifts further back, to 1952 and to Maddy and Allie’s future mother, Lucy Green. A bookish 12-year-old wise beyond her years, Lucy sails with her father and stepmother from New York to London for a wedding. There, she becomes an innocent catalyst to a devastating event involving a love triangle. Hoffman interweaves the three stories, gazing unerringly into forces that cause some people to self-destruct ("There was no such thing as too much for a girl who thought she was second best") and others to find inner strength to last a lifetime."
—Publishers Weekly *starred* review

Over the course of writing more than two dozen works of fiction, Hoffman has created her very own form, the heartbreak fairy tale. Her latest and one of her best is an exceptionally well-structured, beguiling, and affecting triptych of catastrophic love stories, each laced with patterns of three and anchored to a haunted London hotel. In the first and most contemporary tale, Maddy stays at the hotel while visiting her soon-to-be-married sister and falling for her sister’s fiancé. Set in 1966, the middle tale features rebellious young Frieda, a college dropout working as a maid at the hotel who tries to rescue a junkie rock musician. Finally, the tragic story of the hotel’s ghost revolves around precocious young Lucy, whose inadvertent role in a fatal love triangle wounds her very soul. A kind doctor repeats the novel’s mantra when he says that we are accompanied by the Angel of Life, the Angel of Death, and the Third Angel, “the one who walks among us,” and, like us, needs compassion. Not only is Hoffman spellbinding in this incandescent fusion of dark romance and penetrating psychic insight, she also opens diverse and compelling worlds, dramatizes the shocks and revelations that forge the self, and reveals the necessity and toll of empathy and kindness. Hoffman has transcended her own genre.
—Booklist, *starred* review

“The Third Angel is brilliantly crafted, deeply moving, and utterly enchanting. I loved these characters for their complexity, their unpredictability and for the way they showed subtle and shifting nuance in human nature. One of the best things about Alice Hoffman's writing is that she grounds you in detail and also frees your imagination to soar to places it has never been--often simultaneously. Reading her is immensely satisfying--and addictive!”
–Elizabeth Berg, author of The Day I Ate Whatever I Wanted

“With her glorious prose and extraordinary eyes . . . Alice Hoffman seems to know what it means to be a human being.”
—Susan Isaacs, Newsday

“Alice Hoffman takes seemingly ordinary lives and lets us see and feel
extraordinary things.”
—Amy Tan

“Hoffman’s characters, male and female, tend to be defined by the restless, lonely ache of what’s missing in their lives, which becomes clear only when they fill the void with something either unexpectedly right or horribly
wrong. Along the way, Hoffman seems to wriggle into their skin, breathe their air, and think their thoughts.”
—Entertainment Weekly

“A mesmerizing tale of the human condition, this latest novel is sure to please Hoffman's fans and win over new readers. Recommended for all public library fiction collections.”
—Library Journal

“Hoffman makes vivid and new the realization that grace, beauty, and forgiveness can arise out of the most devastating situations.”
—Megan Deem, Elle

“Alice Hoffman’s richly layered novel, The Third Angel, is one of her best.”
—Susan Straight, More