Holly Robinson

Advance Reviews for THE WISHING HILL

“One of the deep pleasures of The Wishing Hill is Holly Robinson’s keen sense of story. Another is her willingness to give all her characters, young and old, second chances. I loved reading about Juliet and how she and her family invent and re-invent themselves as they struggle to reconcile past and present. Many readers will surely
glimpse themselves in this vivid, compassionate novel.” — Margot Livesey, author of The Flight of Gemma Hardy

“A novel that sings of love for a child, loss and regret for a life, and the quiet triumphs of survival and finding each other again.”
–Susan Straight, National Book Award nominee and author of Between Heaven and Here

“Who and what make us who we really are? In Robinson’s luminous novel of buried secrets, she explores how the past can jumpstart the future, how motherhood can be more than genetics, and why finding yourself sometimes depends on discovering the truth in others.”
–Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Pictures of You

“The Wishing Hill is a story about love, loss, secrets, and finding out where we’re really supposed to be in our lives. As Juliet navigates the terrain of divorce, pregnancy, and exploring new love, her greatest gift comes from a place she never expected to find it: revisiting her unsettled past.”
–Maddie Dawson, author of The Stuff that Never Happened

THE WISHING HILL: A SYNOPSIS

What if everything you knew about your life was wrong?

Years ago, Juliet Clark gave up her life in California to follow the man she loved to Mexico and pursue her dream of being an artist. Now her marriage is over and she’s alone, selling watercolors to tourists on the Puerto Vallarta boardwalk.

When her brother asks her to come home and care for their ailing mother, a flamboyant actress with a storied past, Juliet goes reluctantly. She and her self-absorbed mother have always clashed. Plus, nobody back home knows about her divorce—or the fact that she’s pregnant and her ex-husband is not the father.

Juliet intends to get her mother back on her feet and return to Mexico fast, but nothing goes as planned. Instead she meets a man who makes her question every choice and reawakens her spirit, even as she is being drawn into an ancient feud between her mother and a reclusive neighbor. Little does she know that these relationships hold the key to shocking secrets about herself and her family that have been hiding in plain sight in her small New England town.

What Readers Are Saying about Sleeping Tigers:

Best Indie Books of 2012 Semifinalist, Kindle Book Review

2011 Book of the Year Fiction Finalist, ForeWord Reviews

“Sleeping Tigers is the kind of book you wish didn’t have to end. Fast-moving and funny, loaded with sex, adventure, and characters who feel like your oldest friends, it takes the reader through fabulous, keenly-observed settings as it follows one woman on a brave journey of self-discovery. Robinson’s prose crackles with wit and humanity.” –Elisabeth Brink, author of Save Your Own

“Be prepared to be surprised and delighted.”   –Toby Neal, author of Blood Orchids and Torch Ginger

“Ms. Robinson is a captivating story teller who knows how to add the right ingredients to create a page turner that you don’t want to put down. Sleeping Tigers is a must read.” — Kathryn Hamilton, Chick Lit Central

 

What Readers Are Saying about The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter:  A Memoir

“Wacky and tender, The Gerbil Farmer’s Daughter is as much a social history of the ’60s as an intensely personal family memoir. Holly Robinson handles the heavy issues of longing and belonging with wonderful honesty and a light touch.”

–Stewart O’Nan, author of Songs for the Missing

 

“Journalist Robinson cheerfully recalls growing up with a closeted gerbil-breeder….It’s a scenario that could have been lifted from a 1960s sitcom, but Robinson invests the narrative with pathos, good-natured moments of absurdity and plenty of keen humor….Daffy yet sweet and affecting.”

–Kirkus Reviews

 

“Robinson writes with humor and honesty, creating a charming story, a reminder of how all the love and care in the world may not be enough, and a moving tribute to a father who, nonetheless, never stopped trying.”

–Booklist

 

“Robinson…wryly narrates this memoir about growing up with a stern navy father who abruptly takes up breeding the then little-known gerbil in the late 1960s….interspers[ing] her compelling narrative with accounts of gerbil mayhem.”

–Publishers Weekly

 

“A delightful memoir about an unusual childhood, complete with a cast of characters led by an eccentric, forward-thinking father and his incredulous, rebellious kids. Think Cheaper by the Dozen–but with cute, furry rodents thrown in. I loved it!”

–Sandi Shelton, author of A Piece of Normal and What Comes After Crazy

 

“What a delightful, delicious coming-of-age story–filled with a cast of enchanting, eccentric, utterly memorable characters, and with what is most endearing: the author’s affection for them. This is an engrossing tale of family life, and of the extraordinary menagerie that lies at the heart of their adventures. It is as if E. B. White, Gerald Durrell, and Calvin Trillin had conspired to write the funniest, most charming and unlikely of tales.

–Jay Neugeboren, author of Imagining Robert and The Stolen Jew

 

“What does one military man do when he retires from commanding a ship? Why not build the world’s largest gerbil farm? Holly Robinson’s memoir vividly tells of her life growing up in a military family, and of her teenage years as one of the ‘employees’ in her dad’s oddly successful, sometimes exasperating, often humorous livestock venture.”

–Douglas Whynott, author of Following the Bloom and A Country Practice

 

“In the long parade of memoirs American readers have seen in recent years, have you noticed how few make you laugh out loud? Holly Robinson’s book made me laugh so many times my cheeks were a little sore. Her portrait of a little-explored and often-comic landscape, along with the sure and funny narrative voice which is our tour-guide through family, gerbils, and love, is one of the best memoirs around. And her prose is sparkling, very particular, and always vivid.”

–Susan Straight, National Book Award finalist and author of A Million Nightingales and Highwire Moon

 

“As improbable as it was that Holly Robinson’s crisp and buttoned down Navy Commander of a dad would give it all up for the dream of becoming a gerbil guru, it is not at all surprising that his daughter would craft a memoir that captures his odd and sometimes embarrassing passion so well. Her spirited account is equal parts quirky, funny, heartwarming, and even heartbreaking.”

–Madeleine Blais, author of Uphill Walkers: A Memoir of a Family