Message in a Bottle (book)
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| Author | Nicholas Sparks |
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| Country | USA |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Romance |
| Publisher | Warner Books |
| Released | April 1, 1998 |
| Pages | 336 |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-446-52356-9 |
Message in a Bottle, the second romance novel written by American author Nicholas Sparks, exploited the common romance theme of love after grief. The story is set in the mid-late 1990s, then-contemporary Wilmington, North Carolina. The 1999 film Message in a Bottle produced by and starring Kevin Costner is based on this novel.
[edit] Plot summary
Thrown to the waves, and to fate, the bottle could have ended up anywhere. Instead, it is found just three weeks after it begins its journey. Theresa Osborne, divorced and the mother of a twelve-year-old son, picks it up during a seaside vacation from her job as a Boston newspaper columnist. Inside is a letter that opens with: My Dearest Catherine, I miss you my darling, as I always do, but today is particularly hard because the ocean has been singing to me, and the song is that of our life together...
For "Garrett," the man who signs the letter, the message is the only way he knows to express his undying love for a woman he has lost. For Theresa, wary of romance since her husband shattered her trust, the message raises questions that intrigue her. Who are Garrett and Catherine? Where is he now? What is his story?
Challenged by the mystery, and pulled to find Garrett by emotions she does not fully understand, Theresa begins a search that takes her to a sunlit coastal town and an unexpected confrontation. Brought together by chance-or something more powerful-Theresa and Garrett are people whose lives are about to touch for a purpose, in a tale that resonates with our deepest hopes for finding that special someone and everlasting love.
[edit] Reviews
Editorial review of the book follows taken from Amazon.com
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.
[edit] Trivia
- The story was inspired by Nicholas Sparks' father.
- Message in a Bottle, the second novel by Nicholas Sparks, is approximately 92,000 words.
- Message in a Bottle was written in Simpsonville, South Carolina and his home in North Carolina.
- Nicholas Sparks began writing Message in a Bottle in the spring of 1996. Work continued until August, 1996, and continued from February, 1997 through May of 1997. Film rights were sold in March, 1997 (when the novel was half-completed), and the novel was published in the spring of 1998. It spent nearly seven months on the best-seller list in hardcover, and an additional five months on the paperback best-seller list. The film premiered in February, 1999 and opened number one at the box office and eventually grossed $120 million.
