.: A Walk To Remember : Nicholas Sparks :.

There was a time when the world was sweeter... when the women in Beaufort, North Carolina, wore dresses, and the men donned hats...when something happened to a seventeen-year-old boy that would change his life forever.

Every April, when the wind blows in from the sea and mingles with the scent of lilacs, Landon Carter remembers his last year at Beaufort High. It was 1958, and Landon had already dated a girl or two. He even swore that he had once been in love.
Certainly the last person in town he thought he'd fall for was Jamie Sullivan, the daughter of the town's Baptist minister.

A quiet girl who always carried a Bible with her schoolbooks, Jamie seemed content living in a world apart from the other teens. She took care of her widowed father, rescued hurt animals, and helped out at the local orphanage. No boy had ever asked her out.

Landon would never have dreamed of it. Then a twist of fate made Jamie
his partner for the homecoming dance, and Landon Carter's life would never be
the same. Being with Jamie would show him the depths of the human heart and lead
him to a decision so stunning it would send him irrevocably on the road to
manhood....

No other author today touches our emotions more deeply than Nicholas Sparks. Illuminating both the strength and the gossamer fragility ofour deepest emotions, his two New York Times bestsellers, The Notebook and Message in a Bottle, have established him as the leading author of today's most cherished love stories. Now, in A Walk To Remember, he tells a truly unforgettable story, one that glimmers with all of his magic, holding us spellbound--and reminding us that in life each of us may find one great love,the kind that changes everything...

Background information on A Walk to Remember

by Nicholas Sparks
(from a speech given in Berlin, Germany for Heyne Verlag, 2000)

". . . I'm often asked which novel is my favorite, but that's a question I can't really answer. It's like trying to choose between my children and all I can say is that I like them all for different reasons.

I can say however, that A Walk to Remember was my favorite novel to write. I enjoyed the process of capturing the voice of a smart-alecky 17-year-old kid, and found him to be fun to write. Likewise with Jamie Sullivan. There was something intrinsically sweet about her character that gradually seemed to take over the book. It was also the only novel that made me cry while writing.

A Walk to Remember was inspired by my sister.

In many ways, Jamie Sullivan was my younger sister. Like Jamie, my sister was sweet. Like Jamie, my sister had tremendously strong faith. Like Jamie, my sister loved church. Like Jamie, my sister wasn't popular at school. Like Jamie, my sister was always cheerful. Like Jamie, all my sister wanted in life was to get married.

And like Jamie, my sister got cancer.

Like Jamie, my sister met someone. And like Landon, there was a long period of time when this fellow couldn't imagine himself marrying a girl like her. And yet, in the end, he couldn't help himself. Even when he knew she was sick, even when he knew that she might not make it, this man asked my sister to marry him.

It was just about the sweetest thing that's ever been done for anyone, and I suppose I wrote this novel not only so that you could get to know my sister, but so that you would know what a wonderful thing it was that her husband once did for her.

Sadly, my sister died in June (2000). She was thirty-three years old. . ."

I read this story in Borders bookstore yesterday, after having read the reviews of this book. I'm now officially a big fan of Nicholas Sparks.

Having watched the movie, staring the beautiful and sweet Mandy Moore as Jamie Sullivan, I tend to visualise each scenes as I read through. But, even having know what the whole story is about, I still enjoy myself reading page after page of the book. I really do love how Nicholas Sparks describes the each of his character, making them each unique, yet believable.

I still can't help but shed a few tears during those moments that just moves your heart (yes, I was sniffling right in the middle of a crowded bookshop).

And to the age old debate on what the last sentence in this novel means - with reference to the miracle. Nicholas Sparks answer to that was :

Either the miracle was that Jamie lived (if that was the ending you imagined) or that Landon had experienced the miracle of first love and it had redeemed him (if you imagined that Jamie died.)

Again, another love story that is a MUST READ! Also do read At First Sight and The Wedding!