The Terminal Diner
The Terminal Diner
Mary Pat Hyland (author)
Product Description
"Men like pie." Who would know the truth behind those words better than Elaina Brady's mother Maria? Months after she showed her teenage daughter how to bake perfect pie and hours after offering that culinary wisdom, Maria abandons Elaina, her sister Dee Dee and their father Walt. All it took was a lingering, lusty look from a Missoula trucker who stopped by their family's diner and ordered a slice of lemon meringue. Maria hitches a ride west with him, and with that impulsive decision, sixteen-year-old Elaina loses her mother and gains a job baking pies at the diner.
A decade after Maria's departure, Elaina is still working at The Terminal Diner, just around the bend from an upstate New York airport. Her humdrum life is defined by pie-baking routine. Elaina realizes painfully that all she still knows about the opposite sex is summed up in the three last words her mother spoke to her. Then one deceivingly beautiful morning in September 2001, horrifying acts committed by terrorists a hundred miles away upset her world, bringing new influences into her life and inspiring her to be like her mother-impulsive. Will Elaina survive the consequences of her actions?
This suspenseful story is the fourth novel by Amazon Top 100 bestselling author Mary Pat Hyland.
About the Author
Mary Pat Hyland is an award-winning, former newspaper journalist who writes mainstream novels and short stories set in upstate New York. "The Terminal Diner" is her fourth novel. Previous works include the Maeve Kenny series-"The Cyber Miracles" and "A Sudden Gift of Fate"-and a St. Patrick's Day riff on Dante's "Inferno" called "3/17". Her work is inspired by authors such as Eudora Welty, Anne Tyler, John Irving and Flannery O'Connor. Hyland's interests include the Irish language, gardening and cooking (yes, that includes pies).
Product Details
Ebook
File Size: 363 KB
Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1463573545
Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
Publisher: MaryPat Hyland (July 8, 2011)
Language: English
ASIN: B005BYPB8Q
Available at Amazon.com, Amazon UK, Barnes & Noble and Smashwords.
Paperback
246 pages
Publisher: CreateSpace (July 9, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1463573545
ISBN-13: 978-1463573546
Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 0.6 inches
Available at Amazon.com.
Review
The Terminal Diner has a small town setting that feels real and a likable main character, Elaina, whose dull life is stirred up in the wake of 9/11 (the shock and mourning of the town residents are beautifully and believably described by Hyland). Elaina makes an impulsive leap—which does change her life, but not in the way she thought it would.
Elaina bakes great pie. This talent turns out to be as important as her mother said it was before her mother ran off with a trucker from Missoula, Montana.
The novel also contains a couple of mysteries, only one of which is solved. But the unsolved one is even more satisfying than the one that is eventually explained.
The Terminal Diner delivers reading pleasure and leaves you feeling hopeful. A winner.
