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    Home to Big Stone Gap: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Home to Big Stone Gap: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Home to Big Stone Gap: A Novel
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Home to Big Stone Gap: A Novel

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    Millions of readers around the world have fallen in love with the novels of the New York Times bestselling author Adriana Trigiani. In Home to Big Stone Gap, she tells her most powerful story yet, full of humor and heart, wisdom and hope.

    Nestled in the lush Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, the town of Big Stone Gap has been home for Ave Maria Mulligan Machesney and her family for generations. She's been married to her beloved Jack for nearly twenty years, raised one child and buried another, and run a business that binds her community together, all while holding her tight circle of family and friends close.

    But with her daughter, Etta, having flown the nest to enchanting Italy, Ave Maria has reached a turning point. When a friend's postcard arrives with the message "It's time to live your life for you," Ave Maria realizes that it's time to go in search of brand-new dreams. But before she can put her foot on the path, her life is turned upside down.

    Ave Maria agrees to helm the town musical, a hilarious reunion of local talent past and present. A lifelong friendship collapses when a mysterious stranger comes to town and reveals a long-buried secret. An unexpected health crisis threatens her family. An old heartthrob reappears, challenging her marriage and offering a way out of her troubles. An opportunistic coal company comes to town and threatens to undermine the town's way of life and the mountain landscape Ave Maria has treasured since she was a girl. Now she has no choice but to reinvent her world, her life, and herself, whether she wants to or not.
    Trigiani is at her best in this exquisite page-turner. Home to Big Stone Gap is an emotional and unforgettable journey that reminds us that you can go home again and again.

    From BOOKLIST
    *STAR* Trigiani, Adriana. Home to Big Stone Gap. Nov. 2006. 301p. Random, $25.95 (1-4000-6008-7).
    Tucked in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia is Big Stone Gap, the bucolic backdrop for Trigiani's popular series. In this fourth entry, Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney and her husband, Jack, must come to terms with the absence of daughter Etta, newly married and living in Italy. (The country holds a special place in Ave Maria's heart: her biological father, Mario, whom she learned of and met only after her mother's death, is Italian). Ave Maria has plenty to keep her mind off missing her only child (the MacChesney's son, Joe, died of leukemia at age four). She's a full-time pharmacist and the newly appointed director of the town's annual musical. Then comes news that her longtime friend, glamorous librarian Iva Lou, has been keeping a startling secret for nearly 20 years. Other developments, including a health scare for Jack and a Christmas visit from a colorful former resident, move the plot along briskly. With her original cast of characters, playwright and television writer Trigiani blends playfulness and pathos in this evocative portrait of a small southern town. Fans of the Big Stone Gap series can look forward to a feature film; Trigiani has written the screenplay and is slated to direct. -Allison Block
    "    Is there ever trouble for Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney, heroine of Trigiani's beloved Big Stone Gap novels, starting with her married daughter's move to Italy and leading right up to a stranger's disturbing appearance in town."-Library Journal

    Praise for the Big Stone Gap novels:
    "Delightfully quirky . . . chock-full of engaging, oddball characters and unexpected plot twists."
    -People (Book of the Week)

    "Funny, charming, and original."
    -Fannie Flagg

    "Satisfying reading . . . As skillfully as Ms. Trigiani makes us laugh, she makes us cry."
    -Richmond Times-Dispatch

    "Heartwarming . . . Everything that really matters is here: humor, romance, wisdom, and drama."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateOct 31, 2006
    ISBN9780739319451
    Unavailable
    Home to Big Stone Gap: A Novel

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    Reviews for Home to Big Stone Gap

    3.5/5

    258 ratings10 reviews

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    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 2/5
      2.5 Ave Maria came across as a b**** in this one. I was quite displeased.
    • 3/5
      This is the story of Ava Maria McChesney and her life in the small town of Big Stone Gap in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia. Ava Maria has lived in Big Stone Gap her entire life. She married Jack Chesney later in life and had two children: Joe who died at four, and Etta who's just married and is living in Italy with her new husband in Italy. This is a warm story about family and friendships, and the lessons we learn about love and letting go if we live long enough.
    • 5/5
      Adriana Trigiani has kept up the high quality of her writing in this, the fourth book in the Big Stone Gap series. Even after twenty years of marriage, Ave Maria is finding that you still have to work at your relationship to your husband--you can't just coast and keep a vibrant love going. And she experiences other sides to friendships and the importance of making judgements about your friends.
    • 2/5
      Big Stone Gap is in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia where Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney lives with her husband , her only daughter having married and moved to Italy.
    • 2/5
      Didn't have the luster of the other books in the series for me. I'm kind of sick of Ave Maria by now.
    • 3/5
      I enjoyed the other books in the series a bit more than this one, but still a fun read with great characters with great dialog.
    • 3/5
      This was like putting on an old favorite sweatshirt - I had read the three previous Stone Gap books years ago, and right away I felt at home with the characters, the setting. I enjoyed it but did not feel overly impressed.
    • 4/5
      The original Big Stone Gap is still the best in this series, but this sentimental fourth installment was perfect for a winter solstice read by the fireside. I love Trigiani's insights about relationships and her character's emotional temperament. She makes an Appalachian small town come to life with people we care about.
    • 3/5
      Book on CD read by Cassandra Campbell

      Trigiani takes the reader back to Big Stone Gap for the continuing story of Ave Maria Mulligan MacChesney and her family (book #4 in the Big Stone Gap series). Ave Maria is feeling a little down because her daughter has gotten married and moved to Italy. Then a stranger comes to town and this results in a break between Ave Maria and Iva Lou. Add to this the stress of Jack Mac’s health problems and the arrival in town of a coal company that plans to employ mountaintop removal and it’s no wonder Ave Maria is feeling out of sorts. On the other hand there is plenty to celebrate – a wedding, a community theatre production, Christmas, and a dream trip to Scotland. It’s an entertaining novel that shows the ups and downs of life and the importance of family, friends, and a place to call home. Campbell does a fine job on the audio. She has a good pace and enough skill with various voices to differentiate the many characters.
    • 2/5
      Drawn to the cover on the thrift store shelf, I stood there and read a couple of pages. It passed the test, so I bought it. As it turns out, this is number four in a series. And apparently, not a series that works too well stepping smack into the middle of. Too many characters with too much backstory both implied and hurriedly trying to catch the reader up with. (Amn’t I a great review writer – two sentences in a row ending with prepositions!) There was good depth to the main characters, a married couple, but otherwise, too many straggling story lines that belonged to the series as a whole. It is not a series that I’ll continue with, though bits and pieces of this particular book were enjoyable.