A little hope A novel

Wharton, Connecticut, is a sleepy, suburban town, filled in summer with the smell of hydrangeas and the sounds of kids playing soccer and tennis balls smacking country-club pavement. As in many small towns, the connections among its inhabitants are what makes Wharton special. The domino effect of neighbors' choices impact each other one another far more than they could ever imagine. A chance meeting blossoms into a new relationship, a tragic diagnosis inspires independence, a surprise visitor helps breach an emotional wall, a marriage's foundation becomes cracked in an instant. In his debut novel, Joella has an eye and ear for suburban pathos, highlighting tragedy and growth in equal parts. Exploring new love, the twists and turns of grief, and the steadfast loyalty of soulmates, A Little Hope is narrated by a diverse ensemble of Wharton residents. Joella pays particular attention to the aftershocks of loss in the residents' lives, ranging from heartbreak and addiction to cancer, but he doesn't dwell on the maudlin. Loyal readers of Meg Wolitzer and Matthew Norman will gravitate to this immersive, illuminating novel.

The residents of a small Connecticut city navigate grief and hope in Joella's tender debut, a series of vignettes marked by a sense of connection and community. In the opening, Freddie Taylor and her husband, Greg, both nearing 40, grapple with his cancer diagnosis. Freddie had planned to return to writing fiction once their daughter started school, but instead takes a part-time job as a seamstress while Greg, who has worked hard to make v-p at a financial services firm, wishes he were handling the illness better instead of turning prickly toward Freddie and his boss, Alex Lionel. Alex's own fear and guilt are detailed in a later chapter about a long-ago affair he had after the death of his son at 14. Now Alex is hoping his wife of 50 years, Kay, will meet his lovely grown daughter Iris from that tryst. There's also Darcy Crowley, the widow who started the dry-cleaning business where Freddie works and wishes to mend things with her son, who has become addicted to pills and alcohol after his dad's death and a breakup with his girlfriend. The prose can be simplistic, but Joella has a good handle on each of the many characters. Throughout, the overlapping story lines keep readers turning the pages. Agent: Madeleine Milburn, Madeleine Milburn Literary. (Nov.)

Life, death, and love in contemporary New England. Joella's debut novel chronicles 10 months in the lives of a dozen characters in the small Connecticut city of Wharton, and there's certainly plenty of suffering beneath the veneer of Yankee stoicism there. In the past, two of the families have suffered the deaths of children--one in a bicycle accident and another from leukemia--while in the course of the novel another will lose a son whose automobile accident ends his struggles with substance abuse. Greg Tyler, a successful businessman, married and with a 7-year-old daughter, is in the midst of a battle against multiple myeloma whose outcome is far from certain. For Greg's boss, Alex Lionel, the consequences of a long-ago infidelity are revisited with the impending arrival of a grandchild to the young woman whose birth was the result of that adultery. There's a wedding and the kindling of a new relationship between two of the guests who have struggled to find love themselves. The novel's modest title hints at its low-key emotional register, and with a change in point of view with every new chapter, it exists somewhere in a limbo between a collection of linked stories and a more traditional narrative structure. Joella captures the rhythms of life in Wharton and is skilled at identifying both shifts in the weather and events that mark the passage of time in moments so subtle as to be almost undetectable. Readers who enjoy fiction that reflects the struggles and joys of their daily lives will find much that will resonate here, but perhaps because of its large ensemble cast, the novel never truly connects with the emotional hearts of any of their stories. Heartfelt stories of the inhabitants of a small Connecticut city don't add up to compelling drama. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.