If you thought The Notebook was a tearjerker, get out the hankies, pull up a chair, and get ready to have your heart monkey-wrenched by Nicholas Sparks's second star-crossed love story, Message in a Bottle. When Theresa Osborne takes a much-needed summer holiday at Cape Cod, she finds a lot more than a break from the hustle and bustle. On an early-morning jog along Cape Cod Bay, she comes across a corked bottle with a scrolled-up message inside that reads, "My Dearest Catherine, I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together..." It bobbles around in the same vein for several more paragraphs and ends with "...am alone on the pier and I do not care what others think as I bow my head and cry and cry and cry. Garret."

Garret may eat quiche, but no bother--before you can say "Look! I found two more letters!" Theresa is hot on his trail and determined to find this mysterious yet sensitive message-in-a-bottle man. She finds him at a sleepy North Carolina port, working on his beloved sailboat, The Happenstance. From there, a romance buds and blossoms into a colorful bouquet of emotional baggage. Theresa has problems with her past--or, more accurately, her past is a problem. She is so scarred from her "I'm a super churchgoing guy now that I've run out on my wife" ex-husband that she hasn't tried to date since her divorce some three or four years before. And who is Catherine? And what's Garret's bag, anyway? When Theresa finds out, she plunges to the depths of her soul and uncorks a whopper of a secret about herself, bringing Garret to terms with who he really is. Message in a Bottle has the earmarks of sentimental tongue-wagging at its finest and should please romantics and cynics alike--it's sure to bring romantics to their knees, while cynics will be slapping theirs in laughter.


From Publishers Weekly
Avoiding a sophomore slump, Sparks follows The Notebook with another sentimental candidate for the bestseller lists. Boston parenting columnist Theresa Osborne has lost faith in the dream of everlasting love. Three years after divorcing her cheating husband, the single mother is vacationing on Cape Cod when she finds a bottle washed up on the shore. Inside, a message begins: "My Dearest Catherine, I miss you." Subsequent publication of the poignant missive in her column turns up two more letters, found by others, from the same mysterious writer, Garrett Blake. Piqued by his epistolary constancy, Theresa follows the trail to North Carolina, where she discovers that Garrett has been mourning his late wife for three years; writing the sea-borne messages is his only solace. Theresa also finds that Garrett just might be ready to love again... and that she might be the woman for him. There are few surprises here as we watch the couple learn to love in Catherine's slowly waning shadow. By the time they do, Sparks has proved that a man who romantically (and manually) pens missives to his lost lady love in the era of e-mail is a welcome hero in this fin-de-millennium fax-happy world. (Knowing that Kevin Costner has been slated to play Garrett on screen doesn't hurt, either.) Film rights to Warner Bros.; simultaneous Time Warner audio; Literary Guild main selection and Reader's Digest select edition; author tour. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.


The New York Times Book Review, Sarah Harrison Smith
The farfetched plot of Message in a Bottle is more likely to elicit fits of giggles than flutters of the heart, and it leaves the mind quite numb.


From AudioFile
This two-hankie love story features a rugged but sensitive seafaring fellow; his wise, aged father; and a single, sensitive mother who writes a column for a Boston newspaper. The author introduces them, sets up an impossible dilemma, and then weasles out by introducing tragedy. The two readers are highly regarded actors; Boxleitner does the better job, being both gruff and introspective at the same time. Quinlan reads more slowly and with less expression. The transitions between scenes are well handled, with one reader fading out as the other comes in. D.W. (c) AudioFile, Portland, Maine


From Booklist
Sparks' second novel proves that his best-selling The Notebook (1996) was no fluke as, once again, he offers his audience a deeply moving, beautifully written, and extremely romantic love story. Theresa Osborne is a divorced mother and Boston newspaper columnist, disillusioned with the single men she meets and yearning for someone special. When her son goes to California to stay with her ex-husband, she decides to go on a vacation to the Cape with Deanna, her editor and best friend. While jogging on the beach, Theresa discovers a bottle with a letter tucked inside from a man named Garrett to a woman named Catherine in which he describes the heartache of losing her. The letter moves Theresa to tears, so Deanna convinces her to print it in her column, thereby setting off a surprising chain reaction: it turns out that others have also found letters by Garrett. Imagining that this is the sort of man she has been seeking, Theresa sets out to find him, following various clues found in the letters. She succeeds and discovers that, indeed, he is everything she hoped he would be, including sincere, and therein lies the problem. His profound attachment to Catherine is a serious threat to their burgeoning relationship. Sparks' tale about the obstacles people face in second relationships is sensitive, wonderfully bittersweet, and ultimately hopeful. Pat Engelmann


From Kirkus Reviews
Famous from the best-sellerdom of The Notebook (1996), Sparks sails again into the waters of many tearsthough this time, thanks to fewness of charms in the writing and diminished reason to suspend disbelief, Kleenex sales are likely to remain stable. Boston Times columnist Theresa Osborne finds a bottle on the Cape Cod beach where shes vacationing. Inside? Well, a letter from one love-lorn Garrett to a sadly missed Catherine. Reading it brings the not-long-ago divorced Theresa Osborne to tears, though others may have their own responses (I miss you, my darling, as I always do, but today is especially hard because the ocean has been singing to me. . . ). Theresa runs the letter in her Times column (though her beat is really parenting), and, remarkably (But what did it all mean?), another Garrett-Catherine letter surfaces, in the possession of a Norfolk, Virginia, reader of the column. Suffice it so say (I think of you, I dream of you, I conjure you up when I need you most), especially after a third letter comes to light, Theresa really wants to meet Garrett. So after little detective work she flies to Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, visits the docks (She stepped out of her car, brushed the hair from her face, and started toward the entrance), boards Garretts sailing boat, the Happenstance, and meets the remarkable Garrett himself (There was something mysterious and different about the way he acted, something masculine). An evening sail, some more hair-tossing, and a new romance is well underwaythough the question remains whether Garrett can free himself from his grief and love for the tragically dead Catherine, his wife of nine years. Telling wouldnt be fair, though Theresa says at one point: ``I love you, too, Garrett. But sometimes love isnt enough.'' Prizes: Worst writing: Garretts letters. Best scene: storm at sea. Most unbelievable scene: same storm at sea. Worst example of. . . . But enough already. (First printing of 750,000; film rights to Warner Bros.) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.


People, Cynthia Sanz
His dialogue is often banal, and his cliché-heavy prose ... may sometimes make you wince. But the novel's unabashed emotion--and an unexpectedly tragic turn--will just as likely put tears in your eyes.


Download Description
The author of the runaway "New York Times" bestseller "The Notebook" pens a tale of self-discovery, renewal, and the courage it takes to love again. When a 36-year-old single mother finds a love letter in a half-buried bottle while jogging along the shores of Cape Cod, she decides to take a dramatic leap that will forever change her life.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

If you thought Nicholas Sparks couldn't possibly tug at your heartstrings again like he did in The Notebook, you were wrong. Thrown to the waves and to fate, the bottle could have ended up anywhere. But it found its way to Theresa Osborne, divorced and the mother of a twelve-year-old son. The letter inside is signed "Garrett", and is an expression of his love for a woman he has lost. Challenged by the mystery, Theresa searches for Garrett, and takes the reader along on a hunt about love.

SYNOPSIS

In 1996 The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks captured the hearts and imaginations of readers around the world. It spent more than a year on the New York Times bestseller list and was the No. 1 bestselling hardcover fiction title of 1997.

Message in a Bottle, Nicholas Sparks's eagerly anticipated second novel, proves that this author can uncork the magic again. The film industry caught on to the buzz immediately. Warner Brothers snapped up movie rights within 12 hours of submission, and Kevin Costner, Robin Wright, and Paul Newman will star in the film.

The book is a heart-wrenching tale of self-discovery, renewal, and the courage it takes to love again. Teresa Osborne, a 36-year-old single mother, finds a bottle washed up on a Cape Cod beach. The scrolled-up message inside is a passionate love letter written by a heartbroken man named Garrett who is grieving over "his darling Catherine." Teresa is so moved by the stranger's poignant words that she vows to find the penman and publishes the letter in her syndicated Boston newspaper column. Questions linger in her mind and heart: Who is Garrett? Who is Catherine? What is their story? And most importantly, why did this bottle find its way to her?

Imagining that Garrett is the type of man she has always been seeking, Teresa sets out on an impulsive, hope-filled search. Her journey, her discovery, and the wisdom gained from this voyage of self-discovery changes her life forever. Love's unimaginable strength as well as its tremendous fragility echoes on each page of Sparks's newest gem.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal

Sparks, who coauthored the self-help parable Wokini (Random, 1994), weighs in with a romantic novel that will receive a substantial marketing push.

BookList - Joanne Wilkinson

With a huge first printing and a major advertising campaign, Warner is clearly hoping that Sparks' first novel will duplicate the success of Robert James Waller's Bridges of Madison County. Written in the opaque language of a fable, the novel opens in a nursing home as 80-year-old Noah Calhoun, "a common man with common thoughts," reads a love story from a notebook; it is his own story. In 1946, Noah, newly returned from the war, is trying to forget a long-ago summer romance with Allie Nelson, the daughter of a powerful businessman. Allie, soon to be married, feels compelled to track Noah down. One steamed-crab dinner and a canoe ride later, they fall madly in love again. We then learn that Noah, now aged and infirm, is reading his notebook to Allie in an attempt to jog her memory, severely impaired by Alzheimer's disease, and, miraculously, he succeeds, much to the amazement of the hospital staff. There is something suspect about a romantic relationship that reaches its acme when one of the partners is in the throes of dementia, but then, this is well within the confines of the romance genre--love conquers all, even Alzheimer's, leaving the medical experts (and this reviewer) confounded. If you want to read a novel in which the romance is grounded in something real, and the magic is truly magical, read the work of Alice Hoffman. If you want to read an upscale Harlequin romance with great crossover appeal, then read The Notebook.

AudioFile - Don Wismer

This two-hankie love story features a rugged but sensitive seafaring fellow; his wise, aged father; and a single, sensitive mother who writes a column for a Boston newspaper. The author introduces them, sets up an impossible dilemma, and then weasles out by introducing tragedy. The two readers are highly regarded actors; Boxleitner does the better job, being both gruff and introspective at the same time. Quinlan reads more slowly and with less expression. The transitions between scenes are well handled, with one reader fading out as the other comes in. D.R.W. ￯﾿ﾽ AudioFile, Portland, Maine

Kirkus Reviews

Sparks's debut is a contender in the Robert Waller book sweeps for most shamelessly sentimental love story, with honorable mention for highest octane schmaltz throughout an extended narrative.

New Bern is the Carolina town where local boy Noah Calhoun and visitor Allison Nelson fall in love, in 1932, when Noah is 17 and Allie 15 ("as he . . . met those striking emerald eyes, he knew . . . she was the one he could spend the rest of his life looking for but never find again"). Allie's socially prominent mom, however, sees their Romeo-and-Juliet affair differently, intercepting Noah's heartrendingly poetic love-letters, while Allie, sure he doesn't love her, never even sends hers. Love is forever, though, and in 1946 Allie sees a piece in the paper about Noah (he's back home after WW II, still alone, living in a 200-year-old house in the country) and drives down to see him, telling the socially prominent lawyer she's engaged to that she's gone looking for antiques (" `And here it will end, one way or the other,' she whispered"). And together again the lovers come indeed, during a thunderstorm, before a crackling fire, leaving the poetic Noah to reflect that "to him, the evening would be remembered as one of the most special times he had ever had." So, will Allie marry her lawyer? Will Noah live out his life alone, rocking on his porch, paddling up the creek, "playing his guitar for beavers and geese and wild blue herons"? Suffice it to say that love will go on, somehow, for 140 more pages, readers will find out what the title means and may or may not agree with Allie, of Noah: "You are the most forgiving and peaceful man I know. God is with you, He must be, for you are the closest thing to an angel that I've ever met."

An epic of treacle, an ocean of tears, made possible by a perfect, ideal, unalloyed absence of humor. Destined, positively, for success.