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San Francisco Chronicle – Sunday June 11, 2006 --
Beyond dad's reach, siblings learn truth -- Reviewed by Tess Taylor -- Lucy
Dobbins' first marriage had been a sort of Cinderella story: Waifish,
auburn-headed and formerly homeless, Lucy had only recently arrived in Los
Angeles when she attended a party at the home of Charles Keenan, a
successful film director whose morally inflected Westerns made their mark on
the 1970s Hollywood. In a "Les Miserables" moment, she pocketed a piece of
his silver - and got caught.
But instead of angering Keenan, Lucy captured his imagination...
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Santa Fe Reporter – June 7, 2006 -- Review by
Julia Goldberg -- Lisa Tucker’s third novel, Once Upon a Day (Atria
Books), is her strongest effort to date and it’s a lovely and
surprising book. Dorothea grew up in the middle of nowhere, New
Mexico, with no contact with the outside world. Thus, in her early
20s, she is positively Amish in her outlook, with an old-fashioned
and naïve understanding of the contemporary mores others take for
granted. She leaves this environment to go in search of her
brother...
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The Journal Standard (IL) – May 25, 2006 -- A Look
at a book -- Characters ring true in Tucker's third novel, ‘Once
Upon a Day' -- For as long as she can remember, Dorothea O'Brien has
lived a peaceful, sheltered life at the Sanctuary - a luxurious home
on 35 acres in New Mexico where she grew up with her father and
older brother, Jimmy. After the loss of their mother 19 years
before, Charles O'Brien created a haven where he could protect his
children from any threat of harm. The O'Brien kids couldn't play
outside on sunny days...
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Albuquerque Journal – May 7, 2006 -- 'Once' Full
of Romance, Mystery
By Robert Woltman -- Lisa Tucker has ably demonstrated her
writing talent with two well-received novels, "The Song Reader," and
"Shout Down the Moon." Now, Tucker's latest, "Once Upon a Day," is
one of those page-turners full of mystery, suspense and romance that
is likely to keep the TV off and readers up way past prime time.
"My books always seem to start in the same place— a character in
trouble," Tucker said in an interview on the Web site
www.bookreporter.com. "Once Upon a Day" actually begins with two...
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St. Louis Post Dispatch – May 07, 2006 -- Subtle
St. Louis flavor enriches ambitious novel -- By Thomas Crone --
With two prior novels to her credit, Lisa Tucker has established
herself as a writer capable of plumbing the depths of a family's
pain, each of her works suggesting that unlovable characters also
can be the most interesting. Her most ambitious title, "Once Upon a
Day" fits the rough mode of her early works, allowing a small series
of characters to introduce themselves, showing strengths and
weaknesses in a slow-rolling fashion...
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People Magazine, Critic's Choice – April 17, 2006
-- Once Upon a Day by Lisa Tucker -- Reviewed By Lisa Kay
Greissinger -- In Once Upon a Day, Tucker, the author of Shout Down
the Moon, examines the perversity of love and the capricious nature
of life's unfolding. Set in contemporary Missouri and New Mexico and
in the Southern California of the '70s and '80s, her interwoven
story of four members of a shattered family turns on an episode of
violence that changes everyone. Believing that their mother is
dead...
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Denver Post – April 16, 2006 -- Where fate, and a
taxi, take you -- By Robin Vidimos -- Stories that begin "once
upon a time" turn on the fallout from a random event more than on
the natural consequences growing from character and action: A
spindle's pinprick puts the princess into a slumber that can be
relieved only by a worthy prince; the glass slipper, conjured by a
fairy godmother, is abandoned as the beauty flees the ball; children
become lost in a forest after birds eat their trail of bread crumbs.
So it is with Lisa Tucker's new novel, "Once Upon a Day." Fate has
handed each of her central characters a tragic surprise, and each,
in his or her own way, is trying to...
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Boston Globe -- April 9, 2006 -- Once Upon a Day by Lisa Tucker
-- Lisa Tucker's third novel, ''Once Upon a Day," is her most
ambitious yet. It's a tragedy, a mystery, a romance, a twisted
family story about loss, violence, obsession, and forgiveness. The
novel is narrated from various points of view, in the voices of some
unusual characters. Nearly 20 years ago Charles Keenan, a famous
Hollywood writer-director, dropped from sight, kidnapping his two
young children, Dorothea, 4, and Jimmy, 6. He assumed a new...
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Bookpage – April, 2006 -- Interruption of life
-- Review By Tanya S. Hodges -- Have you ever experienced something
so devastating it changed not only the way you live, but also what
you believe? Once Upon a Day, the third novel by writer Lisa Tucker,
is a dark, passionate tale about what can happen when the course of
one's life is interrupted by the events of a solitary day. In the
beginning, life was heavenly in the City of Angels for Charles
Keenan, a screenwriter and director, and his beautiful bride Lucy
Dobbins, a poor girl...
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Library Journal – March 15, 2006 -- Tucker,
Lisa. Once upon a Day. May 2006. 346p. Atria, $24 (0-7434-9277-3).
-- A sheltered, innocent young woman, a kind cab driver, and a
former film star are the narrators of Tucker's (The Song Reader)
ambitious third novel. The plot involves one Charles O'Brien, a
single parent who has raised his children in the "Sanctuary," a
desolate New Mexico location devoid of television, computer, radio,
or newspapers. When Charles becomes seriously ill, his 23-year-old
daughter, Dorothea, must travel...
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Publishers Weekly Starred review – November 28,
2005 -- ONCE UPON A DAY by Lisa Tucker -- Tucker's outstanding
novel (after Shout Down the Moon) is as structurally dexterous as it
is emotionally satisfying, boasting a chorus of extraordinary voices
and assured parallel plot lines separated by four decades. In the
present day, 23-year-old Dorothea has left her overprotective
father's secluded 35-acre New Mexico estate, called the Sanctuary,
where she and her brother, Jimmy, had been sheltered from current
news and all modern-day innovations. Searching for her runaway
brother in St. Louis, Dorothea meets a recently widowed
doctor-turned-cabbie, who introduces her to the vibrant outside
world he's been trying to escape. A parallel tale set in...
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