Hannah's List »

When Debbie Macomber started out, she was a young, dyslexic mother of four who wrote in her kitchen on a rented typewriter. Years later, she's the blockbuster bestselling author of dozens of heartwarming novels that celebrate love, laughter, and the bonds of family and friendship.

On the anniversary of his beloved wife’s death, Dr. Michael Everett receives a letter Hannah had written him.
In it she reminds him of her love and makes one final request. An impossible request — I want you to marry again. She tells him he shouldn’t spend the years he has left grieving her. And to that end she’s chosen three women she asks him to consider.
First on Hannah’s list is her cousin, Winter Adams, a trained chef who owns a café on Seattle’s Blossom Street. The second is Leanne Lancaster, Hannah’s oncology nurse. Michael knows them both. But the third name is one he’s not familiar with — Macy Roth.
Each of these three women has her own heartache, her own private grief. More than a year earlier, Winter broke off her relationship with another chef. Leanne is divorced from a man who defrauded the hospital for which she works. And Macy lacks family of her own, the family she craves, but she’s a rescuer of strays, human and animal. Macy is energetic, artistic, eccentric — and couldn’t be more different from Michael.
During the months that follow, he spends time with Winter, Leanne and Macy, learning more about each of them…and about himself. Learning what Hannah already knew. He’s a man who needs the completeness only love can offer. And Hannah’s list leads him to the woman who can help him find it.

Publishers Weekly

Macomber (Summer on Blossom Street) delves into a Seattle widower's pursuit of love in her hopeful latest. Hannah Everett dies at 36 of ovarian cancer, leaving behind a letter for her pediatrician husband, Michael Everett, to be opened on the first-year anniversary of her death. In it, she suggests he consider one of three women as his next wife: her cousin, chef Winter Adams; Leanne Lancaster, Hannah's divorced oncology nurse; and Macy Roth, a ditzy, animal-loving artist. As Macomber reveals each woman and how they react to Michael's sometimes halfhearted pursuit, the strongest personality is Macy, so it shouldn't be surprising where things head. Macomber's tale of getting on with life is charming enough, though Hannah's cancer battle is glossed over, and the conceit of Michael considering marriage so soon is a little unrealistic. (May)