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    It's You
    It's You
    It's You
    Audiobook10 hours

    It's You

    Written by Jane Porter

    Narrated by Erin Bennett

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    In the wake of a tragedy that tore her life down to the foundations, Dr. Alison McAdams has lost her way. So when she's summoned to Napa to care for her ailing father, she's not sure she has anything to offer him-or anyone else.

    What Ali finds in Northern California wine country is a gift-an opportunity to rest, and distance from her painful memories. Most unexpectedly, she finds people who aren't afraid of her grief or desperate for her to hurry up and move on.

    As Ali becomes part of her father's community, makes new friends of her own, and hears the stories of a generation who survived the Second World War, she begins to find hope again. In a quest to discover the truth about another woman's lost love, she sets off on a journey across oceans and deep into history. And in making sense of that long-ago tragedy, Ali is able to put together the broken pieces of her heart and make new choices that are right for her.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 9, 2015
    ISBN9781494580292
    It's You
    Author

    Jane Porter

    Jane Porter loves central California's golden foothills and miles of farmland, rich with the sweet and heady fragrance of orange blossoms. Her parents fed her imagination by taking Jane to Europe for a year where she became passionate about Italy and those gorgeous Italian men! Jane never minds a rainy day – that's when she sits at her desk and writes stories about far-away places, fascinating people, and most important of all, love. Visit her website at: www.janeporter.com

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    Reviews for It's You

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    • 4/5
      It's You by Jane Porter is a deeply emotional and sometimes heartbreaking novel. Although very different from Ms. Porter's usual books, it is a very well-written story with a compelling plot and sympathetic characters.

      Scottsdale, AZ dentist Allison "Ali" McAdams is still struggling to comes to terms with the loss of her fiancé just weeks before their wedding. Her world was turned even more upside down when six months after his death, her mom unexpectedly passed away. Her dad then moved into a retirement facility in Napa and although they were never very close, this is yet another change that she finds difficult to deal with. When her dad takes a spill, Ali takes a few weeks off from work to spend some quality time with him.

      Ali is a little surprised at some of the changes in her dad. Instead of the introverted man she has always known, she is taken off guard by how social he has become. He has made numerous friends and participates in several of the retirement center's planned activities. One of his closest friends is ninety five year old Edie Stephens and while her dad deeply cares for her, Ali and Edie do not exactly hit it off when they first meet. But all of that changes as the two women bond over their shared losses once Ali learns that Edie lost her first husband during WW II.

      Edie's story is quite tragic and at first, Ali has a difficult time wrapping her head around the fact that Edie's husband was an officer in German army. However, through Edie's recollections and her diaries, Ali learns there is much more to the story than she first thought. She is so moved by Edie's life in Germany that she impulsively plans a trip to Berlin so she can see firsthand some of the important places that figured so prominently in Edie's long ago past.

      It is not until Ali begins talking with Edie that she begins to make peace with her own past. Ali is very introspective and her pain and sorrow is so palpable that it is very heartbreaking to read just how deeply she is still suffering from her losses. She remains steadfast in her decision to never risk her heart again, but once she learns about Edie's past, she begins to realize that loss is an inevitable part of life. By the novel's end, Ali has recovered from her losses enough to consider making some changes in both her personal and professional lives.

      There is also a slight romantic element to the story and the introduction of Ali's potential love interest provides longtime fans of Jane Porter the opportunity to catch up with characters from the Brennan Sisters trilogy. Although the overall storyline is somewhat somber, the historical aspects of the storyline are quite fascinating and the novel's conclusion is upbeat and positive. All in all, It's You is a poignant and heartfelt novel of healing that I highly recommend.
    • 5/5
      Over a year after his death, Alison McAdams is still emotionally hamstrung by the suicide of her fiancé, Andrew Morris. It doesn't help that her mother died a few weeks after that, and it may not help that Alison, a dentist, as Andrew was, is working in Andrew's father's dental practice. She'd like her father, now living in a retirement community in Napa Valley, to come live with her in Scottsdale, but he refuses.

      Reluctantly, she takes a month off of work to go visit her father.

      On the plane flight, she makes a new friend, Diana, a florist. At Napa Estates, she meets her father's friends, including a very prickly old woman named Edie Stephens. Edie had gone to Germany to study music before WWII, then went to work for the US Embassy there, and met and fell in love with a German officer, Franz.

      Edie and Ali keep annoying each other, but they also keep coming back to each other. They start telling each other things they've never told anyone else. And Edie shares her diary of the war years, an American living in Berlin, married to a German officer.

      Neither finds what they expect to find.

      We get the story in both voices, or rather three: Ali's, Edie's now, and Edie during the war, in her diary. And the more Ali gets drawn into Edie's story, her heart breaks again, and starts to heal.

      Edie and Ali are both compelling and moving characters, and I became totally drawn in to their shared and intermingled stories. Highly recommended.

      I received a free electronic galley of this book from the publisher via NetGalley.
    • 5/5
      I love Jane Porter. And I love her books. This is yet another one that I thought was well written, and didn't want to put down. The characters came to life for me, and I wanted to follow along in their journey as the book progressed. I am still wondering how their lives unfold beyond the book. Bravo!
    • 5/5
      Title: It's YouAuthor: Jane PorterPublisher: BerkleyReviewed By: Arlena DeanRating: FiveReview:"It's You" by Jane PorterWhat I liked about this novel....I really like how this author was able to give the reader such a good story of healing as it was for Ali especially after she left for Napa after the death of her mother and untimely death of her finance Andrew, who had committed suicide in Arizona. Truly life for Ali had been 'turned upside down.' Now she was in Napa looking after her father due to falling and injuring his arm who now lived in a retirement community. Would she be able to find some peace after all of her painful memories that had haunted her from Arizona? It was in Napa where Ali opens up to new friendships and trying to decide what would be best for her life now that she is alone and feeling very angry. What will happen after Ali meets a cantankerous old women named Edie who lad lost her husband in W W II? I liked how this author was able was able to let one see that there are some many pains and losses in our world. This history was indeed interesting! From meeting Edie why would a journey to Berlin give Ali answers about not only Edie but herself also? Who would have known that both of these women had endured tremendous emotional pain. In the end would there be a way for Ali to heal and yet not forget? I liked how this author was able to show through another person story how Ali will be able to find the courage she needed to want to live again. I found the characters were beautiful written being so well developed, defined, some humor and so believable giving this story such a heart wrenching detailed story that I wasn't able to put down until the end...often finding myself tearing up at parts of the read. Be ready for a good story of personal growth and self discover....also there is a backstory from a Edie's diary...but I don't want to spoil it for you...only to say you will have to pick up the good read to see for yourself what that is about."It's You" was a well written story by this author that told two stories of two women of different generations that showed raw powerful emotions. For Ali.... love and loss, recovered from heart break and healing to being able to pick up the broken pieces of the heart and the strength to make some new choices and hope again. I will go farther in saying that this is one novel that will stay with you long after you have read it.I received a copy through NOR in exchange for an honest review.
    • 4/5
      When you have suffered the unimaginable, how do you find the strength to go on? In Jane Porter's newest novel, It's You, main character Dr. Alison McAdams has been facing this question, unable to answer it for over a year. She is emotionally frozen by the completely unexpected suicide of her fiance Andrew one year prior. She's just barely hanging on, continuing to work in Andrew's father's dental practice, and going through the motions of life. When her father, who lives in a retirement community in Napa, calls to tell her that he fell and broke his wrist, she must take a leave from work and go check on him, despite her reluctance and their heretofore distant relationship. She was much closer to her mother but when her mother dies within months of Andrew, Ali is hit with a double whammy and left with only the father with whom she has never quite connected to fill the double hole in her heart. But the father she finds is not the father she remembers from before her mother's death. This version of her dad is extremely social and connected to others in his retirement community, especially his prickly, elderly bridge partner, Edie.As Alison watches her father in his new life, she is forced to face her own new life. She forges her own connections with his friends, listening to them talk about their history, both personal and general. As she listens, she starts to open herself to caring for others again, learning the inevitability of loss and grief but also the power and endurance of love. She is most inspired by the nonagenarian Edie, who has herself lived through unimaginable loss. Narrated in turn by both Ali and Edie, the novel flips from the present to WWII and back again. Once Ali and Edie make their tenuous connection to each other, Edie doles out the story of her past and her beloved husband Franz in small dibs and dabs, testing the water to see if Ali can be open-minded hearing about her love story with a Nazi officer. As the story unspools and Ali comes to understand the unexpected depths of it, she learns by example how to find the strength to start over and to really examine what she wants out of her life.The characters are richly developed and Ali for sure shows a large amount of personal growth. Porter has done a good job organically weaving in the unusual angle of the German Resistance and the 20 July Plot into a story line centered on love, healing, and looking forward. There is just a tiny hint of potential romance here, making it firmly women's fiction with historical overtones rather than a romance. For longtime Porter readers, there is a brief mention and cameo of a previous character from one of her older novels as well. The story overall is a sad, often depressing, one centered on loss and grief and being left behind but, in the end, it also offers hope for the future, for repairing relationships, and for the peace that comes with forgiveness or understanding. The reasons for Andrew's suicide are never fully explored but the resulting effect on Ali's life is unmistakable, regardless of his reasons. Ali and Edie's relationship often feels tentative, making it seem a bit strange that this very private woman opens up and shares her unhappy past with this young woman she isn't always certain she likes (and who she certainly doesn't want for her great-nephew). But the emotional impact of Edie's tale, her lost love and the way she chose to live her life beyond it, is the only thing that helps Ali re-evaluate her own stasis. The novel is a very quick read, one that is a generally satisfying addition to your summer reading.