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Bursting with imagination, THE TWELVE LIVES OF SAMUEL HAWLEY by Hannah Tinti has been described as ‘One part Quentin Tarantino, one part Scheherazade‘ (Ann Patchett) and will appeal to fans of the Coen Brothers’ True Grit or Emma Cline’s The Girls.
Hero. Villain. Father…
After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley and his daughter Loo finally settle in Olympus, Massachusetts. Hawley takes up fishing, while Loo struggles with friendship and first love, and tries to piece together the puzzle surrounding her mother’s death. Haunting them both are the twelve scars Hawley carries on his body, from twelve bullets in his criminal past – a past that is about to spill over into Loo’s present, with explosive consequences.
Hero. Villain. Father…
After years spent living on the run, Samuel Hawley and his daughter Loo finally settle in Olympus, Massachusetts. Hawley takes up fishing, while Loo struggles with friendship and first love, and tries to piece together the puzzle surrounding her mother’s death. Haunting them both are the twelve scars Hawley carries on his body, from twelve bullets in his criminal past – a past that is about to spill over into Loo’s present, with explosive consequences.
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Reviews
Exceptional... a tender work of art exposing the universal needs of men to survive, to love, and grieve - whether their fate is cast in stars, or submerged beneath the surface... a sure-fire hit with characters I came to love.
What Hannah Tinti knows about fathers, daughters and time could, as they say, fill a book - and truly does. The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is bold, exciting, and original
Starring a fiercely loving, reluctant criminal and a girl of grit and wonder, Tinti has forged a breathtaking novel of violence and tenderness
The Twelve Lives of Samuel Hawley is one part Quentin Tarantino, one part Scheherazade , and twelve parts wild innovation. Hannah Tinti proves herself to be an old fashioned storyteller of the highest order
A father/daughter road trip you won't soon forget
Utterly magnificent - gripping, suspenseful, funny, and so full of heart
A master class in literary suspense
Beautifully constructed... Tinti has fused a cowboy-noir action adventure and a coming-of-age tale into a father-daughter love story
An inventive and fearless story about heroism and protecting the people we love
It was the innovative storytelling and wonderful character of Loo, the schoolgirl on a mission to uncover the secret of her mother's mysterious death and decode the twelve scars that mark her ex-con father's body, that hooked me
Their relationship is sharply drawn in this violent, tender tale
This father-daughter story is an unusual but winning blend of small-town New England atmosphere and high-octane action scenes. Imagine a John Irving novel getting the Hollywood shoot-'em-up treatment and you'll have some idea of what Tinti does in this unexpectedly dark book full of quirky characters
[We are] carried by Tinti's seductive prose. She has a deep feeling for the passage of time and its effect on character. And when it's appropriate, she can use her vivid language to express the ripping depth of human pain. As this strikingly symphonic novel enters its last movement, the final bars remind us that all of the painful wounds that humans can endure, the worse are self-inflicted.
The rapid-fire switching between the story lines gives the book an irresistible velocity that Ms. Tinti sustains to the end
Hannah Tinti's second novel doesn't disappoint...Sensitive, coming-of-age literary novel meets Pulp Fiction and it all works? Yes, indeed!
Pacy and violent, poignant and sensitive
Tinti's second novel is a determinedly literary thriller about a father trying to shake off his criminal past and his daughter's need for answers about her mother's death
If you like to be challenged and you love writing that is subtly brilliant, and you enjoy a story that is unexpected, complex and unsettling, then you should put this coming-of-age tale on your to-read pile