Product Description: Anna Matthews left home at eighteen, a young woman rooted in small-town virtues, seeking adventure in the Green Mountains of Vermont. She found a free-spirited young man whose boundless imagination captivated her heart. Forced apart, Anna tries to build a new life. A decade later, a series of gripping novels awaken Anna’s veiled dreams, illuminating a striking disparity within her marriage. She seeks the author, but the truth she discovers will change her life. Anna is confronted with a clear choice--continue living the comfortable, but hollow American Dream or pursue her dream. In his auspicious debut, Kirk Martin paints a love story that is at once soaring and bittersweet. Shade of the Maple captures the subtle, yet powerful nuances that distinguish mere romance from intimacy. An intimacy that is powerful, moving and unforgettable.
Kirk Martin is donating $1.00 from every purchase of Shade of the Maple to Friends You Can Count On to develop an earlier detection blood test for breast cancer.
I really WANTED to like this book .... I really wanted to like this book but just couldn't. All the incredients were there for a wonderful story, but it fell far short of the mark. I hung in there and read the entire thing (thinking it had to get better) but I was overly optimistic.
I LOVE Vermont and have spent time in the geographic locations described. The descriptions of the area were the one redeeming feature. Having been there, it was easy to picture the locale and was fairly well described. My main complaint was the stilted language used in the book when describing how the characters interact. Conversations between them were stiff or overly sugary and painful to read. I think had this been turned into a college comp class the best grade it would have received would have been a "C".
Any comparisons to Nicholas Sparks's work does Mr. Sparks a great disservice. While Mr. Sparks doesn't write great literature that will last through the ages, his books are enjoyable. This one was not.
Just Beautiful I received this book as a Christmas gift from a friend whose child has been helped immensely by the author through his Celebrate!ADHD program for kids with learning disabilities.
I had heard wonderful things about his work with kids and charities. So I was so surprised to find that he was also able to write an incredibly touching and beautiful love story.
I guess now that I have kids, I really value the simplicity, innocence and purity of love that lasts a lifetime. Maybe that's what made this book so special to me.
It's not a literary classic and at times he is a bit overdescriptive, but he does understand the human heart. Now I can see why he's so good with kids. All in all, a simple, very beautiful love story that will stay with you for days after you put it down.
Still believe in the magic of love... I met the author a couple weeks ago. He was speaking at our school about positive ways to encourage and teach children with ADHD. It was a truly fascinating approach, and after reading his book,Celebrate ADHD, I am amazed at the difference it has made already in my classroom.
He spoke a little bit about his novels and warned the audience that they were not to be confused with the works of Faulkner or Fitzgerald--rather, they are innocent, but very heartfelt love stories. One is about the love between a father and his son (which he said is autobiographical).
I read Gifted last week, and it it truly an amazing story about three unlikely friends who battle their demons and help each other overcome them. I really, really loved this story.
And last night, I picked up Shade of the Maple. I just put it down and have to admit that it took my breath away a bit. The love between the main characters is something I haven't experienced before--it is simple, which makes it all the more appealing to me.
The main difference I've seen in reviewers isn't about the quality of the writing. As an English teacher, I can say the author is right--he's no Falkner, but he's no slouch, either. These are well-constructed stories from beginning to end. He creates lovely pictures that make it easy to see the story in your head. The main difference seems to be that those who believe in the innocence of love, peoplewho generally have a hopeful or romantic notion of love, really enjoy this book. Those who are perhaps a bit more jaded or prefer reading stories of tragedy and heartache will not like this book.
I will always treasure this story.
Only for the really simple-minded I suggest that if you are buying this book based on these reviews, you take the time to actually read all of them (including the one star reviews). There is a consistent theme here of either "I LOVED it" or "this is simplistic nonsense."
I am fully in the simplistic nonsense camp. Maybe you should decide what type of reviewers you are more likely to agree with - romance novel readers or, shall we say, higher-level, quality fiction readers. This book will only satisfy the most immature reader out there. I hate to be mean about it, but it really reads like something an overly starry eyed and ambitious high school freshman girl would write. It's very, very whimpy, and worse than that, very amateurish.
I don't get it. Unbelievable. Come on... a love story? Hooey! I bought this book because of the great reviews here. What a disappointment. The characters are not believable and neither are the choices they made. The best part is the descriptive writing about the countryside and the seasons. It's nice that the author donates some proceedes to breast cancer.
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