Product Description

AN IMAGINARY FRIEND
Jane Margaux is a lonely little girl. Her mother, the powerful head of a New York theater company, makes time for her only once a week, for their Sunday trip to admire jewelry at Tiffany's. Jane has only one friend: a handsome, comforting, funny man named Michael. He's perfect. But only she can see him. Michael can't stay forever, though. On Jane's eighth birthday he leaves, promising that she'll forget him soon. He was there to help her until she was old enough to manage on her own, and now there are other children who need his help.

AN UNEXPECTED LOVE
Years later, in her thirties, Jane is just as alone as she was as a child. And despite her own success as a playwright, she is even more trapped by her overbearing mother. Then she meets Michael again--as handsome, smart and perfect as she remembers him to be. But not even Michael knows the reason they've really been reunited.

AND AN UNFORGETTABLE TWIST
Sundays at Tiffany's is a heart-wrenching love story that surpasses all expectations of why these people have been brought together. With the breathtaking momentum and gripping emotional twists that have made James Patterson a bestseller all over the world, Sundays at Tiffany's takes an altogether fresh look at the timeless and transforming power of love.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #206927 in Books
• Published on: 2009-01-06
• Released on: 2009-01-06
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 336 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780446199445
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
• Click here to view our Condition Guide and Shipping Prices

Review
"A love story as suspenseful as any thriller . . . clever, light, and as welcoming as an ocean breeze." (People on Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas )

"The idea is to simply curl up and enjoy . . . you haven't guessed how this story ends." (New York Times on Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas )

"A box-of-tissues winner." (Bookreporter.com on Sam's Letters to Jennifer )

"An affecting love story awash in tragedy and hope . . . Patterson again shows us how it is done." (Publishers Weekly on Sam's Letters to Jennifer )

"A heartwarming novel from the master of bone-chilling suspense" (BookPage on Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas )

About the Author
James Patterson is one of the best-known and bestselling writers of all time. He is the author of the #1 bestsellers Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas and Sam's Letters to Jennifer, and of the bestselling Alex Cross and Women's Murder Club detective series. He has won an Edgar Award - the mystery world's highest honor - and his novels Kiss the Girls and Along Came a Spider were made into feature films starring Morgan Freeman. He lives in Florida with his wife and son.


Gabrielle Charbonnet also writes children's books. She lives in North Carolina.

From AudioFile
When she's a child, lonely Jane knows she'd be lost without her friend, a man named Michael, whom no one else can see. So she's devastated when he leaves on her ninth birthday, promising her she'll forget him. But she doesn't, ever. When Jane is in her thirties���lonely as ever���they meet again. Ellen Archer gives a delicate shading to this story of unexpected love. She transitions from the childhood Jane to the adult Jane with a subtle change in tone while keeping Jane's essential speech patterns. Archer's portrayal of Jane's powerful mother is just as convincing as those of Jane and Michael. Throughout the book, Archer resists the story's pull toward sentimentality and keeps the performance both thoughtful and entertaining. R.L.L. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine

Customer Reviews

Touching, but confusing and ridiculously overpriced love story (2.5 stars)...
Eight-year-old Jane Margaux is the daughter of a chic and famous Broadway producer. And since her mother is always busy producing musical hits and her father is mostly vacationing with his new trophy wife in Nantucket, she seems to spend a whole lot of time on her own. That's all right though, because Michael, her imaginary friend, is always there. But what's going to happen to her when Michael leaves her after her ninth birthday? He doesn't want to leave her, but he must. Alas, she won't remember him anyway, so it doesn't matter. Michael is somewhere in his early to mid thirties -- a handsome man with magnetic green eyes. His job is to be a child's imaginary friend for a while. He cannot be seen by grownups during these assignments. Then he lives a semi-normal life whenever he's on sabbatical. Twenty-three years later, he sees Jane again. She's a grownup now, working on turning her musical production into a feature film. The play is based on her relationship with Michael. She has never been able to forget her imaginary friend, no matter what he had told her. Her life is sort of a mess -- a controlling mother, an actor boyfriend who is using her, and an imaginary friend she can't seem to get off her mind. What happens when Jane and Michael are face to face after so many years? And how is it possible that this man -- someone she had thought was a figment of her imagination -- is actually real?

Sundays at Tiffany's reminds me of The Velveteen Rabbit, where the boy's love makes the rabbit real. James Patterson got the help of Gabrielle Charbonnet, a children's book writer, to create this modern-day romantic fantasy. The love story itself is simple and beautiful. I have to admit, however, that the whole concept of a man falling in love with a woman he had been close to when she was a child seemed kind of creepy at first, but Patterson handles it well. This is one of Patterson's love stories, not one of his thrillers, and his tear-jerkers have always reminded me of Nicholas Sparks. The one big difference is that Sparks's novels seem to be targeted to older, middle-aged/elderly readers, whereas Patterson's books are based on younger characters and therefore more fun. I give this book three stars because I couldn't quite understand Michael's job very well. The explanation is insufficient. Also, the whole thing with Jane's mother strikes me as strange. Isn't this the woman who forgot her daughter's ninth birthday? And I can't get over how short this book is. With the giant font size on 309 pages (with some empty pages in between a few of the chapters), this is more like a novella, sold at the price of a full-length novel. I really, really hate it when publishers do that. So greedy. Other than that, Sundays at Tiffany's is an enchanting novel, but I'd wait for the paperback or bargain price edition. The overpriced hardcover gets 0 stars, the story itself gets three stars.

Weird premise that doesn't work
James Patterson has tried centering a whole novel around a gimic that doesn't work...at least not for me. I enjoyed the beginning of the novel when Jane is a young girl. Very believeable and touching. I also enjoyed the character of Jane as an adult. Patterson's heroine is extremely likeable. And, actually, I truly liked the hero, Michael, as well. The problem for me isn't the characters of Jane and Michael, per se, as much as how childish the gimic of their relationship becomes half-way through. I can usually suspend my disbelief pretty well as a reader, but this just didn't work for me. Midway through, I started to feel I was reading a pre-teen paranormal novel. I was internally rolling my eyes during the last half of the book. I love a love story, but this one just left me disappointed. My husband asked me what I thought after I closed the book, and all I could answer was, "Stupid."

Be Prepared to Suspend Reality with this Romantic Fantasy
Warning: this is not for James Patterson fans addicted to Alex Cross. Think of his romantic novellas like Suzanne's Diary for Nicholas and if you liked that, you'll be more inclined to like this one. However, even though I am perfectly willing to suspend reality and slip into fantasy mode when necessary, I do expect the fantasy to be logical and well thought out---in other words, a realistic fantasy, one that could be possible in a dream-come-true world. This one fails on that score.

The most endearing part of the novel is Jane as the poor little rich girl. Her divorced mother is too busy for her and constantly belittles Jane for her weight and just about everything else. Her absent father has little purpose other than showing up occasionally to disappoint her. No wonder young Jane slips into Fantasy Land and is only too happy to have Michael, her imaginary friend, become her best and only friend. This concept works well, especially for the hundreds of adults who might recall with fondness their own imaginary friend from childhood. It is only when the adult Jane reconnects with Michael that the novel becomes a bit creepy and all logic is lost. Apparently, the authors had a wonderful idea of telling the story of an imaginary friend, but didn't take the time to work out answers to the details of his life---details like why he doesn't age, how he explains his occupation to the real-world adults he associates with between assignments, his status as angel or not, etc. Michael's character, one that could have been truly wonderful, is just not that well thought out. Even Michael doesn't know the answers.

If one of my children had written this when they were eight or nine, I would have praised their creativity in coming up with such a plot. But a distinguished writer like James Patterson owes his adult audience a book with a more well-defined parameters. Even fantasies have to make sense on some level.