Stella Bain was an excellent book about a woman who lost her memory while serving as a nurse's aide during World War I. Stella travels to London to help her find who she is. She meets a couple, Dr. and Mrs. Bridge, who take her into their home. Dr. Bridge helps Stella with her memory loss. It...
A sex scandal involving teens at a private school in Vermont - this type of story has likely been written a thousand times over by many authors. Topic aside, there are a few things I really liked about this book. First, I thought it was interesting that the author switched points of view througho...
I enjoyed the story although it was confusing for a character to start the story with one name and a third of the way through, she realized that her real name was something else. I had trouble reconciling the second name with the character for the rest of the book. This story is written about o...
I listened to this riveting story on audiobook, and despaired when the book ended. The sequence of events proved a little confusing, and the ending seem too rushed. The character of Stella/Etna shows the glimmer of an independent woman emerging from World War I. Stella buys her own cottage, su...
So...it's probably quite obvious that I'm back at work. I was averaging a book a week and now, three weeks have passed with no new reviews. A few people have even contacted me (which I loved) about what I was reading now. Sorry folks, the whole having to get up early to teach the children how to ...
Just as I have with most of her works, I flew right into the world of this story, away from the here – the very thing every novel hopes to accomplish. Her writing is the kind we fall asleep holding. The kind that has us bargaining with ourselves. "Just 10 more pages, then I’ll ..." Before we know...
In the book Eden Close by Anita Shreve, a young man named Andrew returns to his childhood house after the death of his mother to attend the funeral and pack up the house and try to sell it. The longer Andrew stays renovating his old home, the more childhood memories flood his mind. Like the memor...
I was really pleasantly surprised from this book. From all the Shreve novels I've read so far, there is always some tawdry affair. The affair concept is completely tiresome. I keep reading her books because I bought a whole lot of them off Ebay and had read an excerpt and noted that I really l...
I love this book because it interposes the akward innocence of deep young love with the carnality of mature love. The book is summed up in this quote: "Was there, or could there ever be, he wondered then, and wonders now, a reconciliation between innocence and sexuality?" It does this by intertwi...
This novel brings seven former schoolmates together after more than 20 years to attend a wedding at an inn in the Berkshire Mountains. The tight bond held by this group of friends was shattered years earlier when one of their own died unexpectedly. The blossoming relationships and potential of ea...
Imagine being a twenty-nine year old woman, one divorced and then once widowed. It's not a very common occurrence, but it is the main character of this book - Sydney's reality. This is the stage of her life in which she finds herself when she goes to work for the Edwards family. Ostensibly to tut...
This book is about a young girl and her dad. They recently lost their mom/wife and sister/daughter in a car accident in new york. They move away to a small town. One day they are snow shoeing and they hear a wail, they think it's just a cat or some other animal. But it ends up being a baby. They ...
Epic!! I thought this book was so very good!! The first half made my upper lip sweat and I was reminded what it was like to be young and in love for the first time. The author describes the feelings, the thought process, the intensity so well that you are really remembering it all. Shreve doe...
Having lived in so many areas of the country, I have always enjoyed reading works of fiction by authors who are local to the area where I am currently living. It is interesting to get a regional historical perspective through the intertwining of real places, people and events in order to underst...
Even at The Christian Science Monitor, opening the book packages that pour in every day is a dirty business. I used to come home with my shirt smudged black till I found a solution. But now, no matter how many times I remind my colleagues that I'm wearing a "manly smock," they insist on calling i...
One of my favorite books. This is haunting, beautiful, magical and shocking. This is one of those books that is best appreciated by those who are past their 20s. You look back on your life and wonder about the what might have been, what ifs, if onlys. You know that one moment or one event can cha...
Although I always find Anita Shreve's novels somewhat depressing, there's no denying that she produces extremely well-written and, in this and many other instances, mesmerizing stories. The year is 1929 as Honora and Sexton Beecher begin their life together as husband and wife. The home Sexton se...
Margaret asked Patrick to allow her to be last, since she was likely to be the slowest, but Patrick argued that it wasn’t safe. Best to have a man at the head and foot of a climb, he added. Margaret thought of protesting on feminist grounds but wondered if Patrick knew something she didn’t. She l...
The probies watch it over and over during their first three months. They need the mindless laughter to calm their nerves. The radio sounds out the tones at 3:10 a.m. Powell, a probie who has the haircut of a marine and the skinny frame of a geek, pops up from the couch lik...