The Third Angel: A Novel [Paperback]

A magical and stunningly original story that charts the lives of three women in love with the wrong men from bestselling author Alice Hoffman.

Headstrong Madeleine Heller finds herself hopelessly attracted to her sister’s fiancé. Frieda Lewis, a doctor’s daughter and a runaway, becomes the muse of an ill-fated rock star. And beautiful Bryn Evans is set to marry an Englishman while secretly obsessed with her ex-husband. At the heart of the novel is Lucy Green, who blames herself for a tragic accident she witnessed at the age of twelve, and who spends four decades searching for the Third Angel–the angel on earth who will renew her faith.

Brilliantly evoking London’s King’s Road, Knightsbridge, and Kensington while moving effortlessly back in time,The Third Angelis a work of startling beauty about the unique, alchemical nature of love.“Is there an American novelist who understands the complicated and mulitfacted nature of love in all its manifestations — romantic, familial, platonic — better than Alice Hoffman?... Some critics have minimed the complexity of Hoffman’s work by refering to her as a romance writers. Well, Hoffman is a romance writer, but then so were Flaubert, Proust, the Bronte sisters, and Jane Austen.The Third Angelis indeed a romance, but one of intricacy and pathos, with characters beautifully, believably and empathetically drawn.…The Third Angelrepresents yet another strong, visceral and deeply, darkly moving tale of love and heatbreak, tragedy and redemption from a writer whose keen ear for the measure struck by the beat of the human heart is unparalleled.The Third Angelis an intense, provocative and throughly affecting novel.”
—The Chicago Tribune

“Like Michael Cunningham’s ‘The Hours,’ Hoffman’ s tale weaves the stories of women at key moments in their lives l³.