Tag Archives: Marriage

Legacy by Lois McMaster Bujold (The Sharing Knife, Book 2)

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Synopsis:
Wedded against custom, magical Lakewalker Dag and his farmer bride Fawn return to Dag’s family home, where they face rejection and ostracism, but when Dag is called out on patrol to battle the most fearsome malice he’s ever seen, they learn that their bond is more than just one of love and may change the world they know.

Review:
If Legacy weren’t such a strong book I totally would’ve put it down the second my copy of Mockingjay showed up, but Lois McMaster Bujold is such a good storyteller that not even the fate of Katniss Everdeen could tear me away.

I really loved the prosaic details about camp life, and watching Fawn learn a new culture. The Lakewalker society is very well detailed. The love story deepens in a wonderful way, and Bujold gives tantalizing hints about the story’s mythology that I hope will be expanded upon on Book Three.

But I can wait no longer, so Fawn and Dag will have to wait! Am hoping I can exercise a modicum of restraint and not stay up all night reading Mockingjay. But if I do, I’m doubly hoping that my newborn stays asleep so I can finish it!

The Island by Elin Hilderbrand

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Synopsis:
In the wake of tragedy, a middle-aged divorcée, her sister, and her two grown daughters retreat to the family home on remote, rustic Tuckernuck Island off the coast of Nantucket, where buried secrets and repressed longings burst to the surface.

Review:
The Island is a book about loss, grief, and longing, with 3 of the main characters haunted by the untimely death of a lover. The main character, Birdie, has survived a divorce after decades of marriage, and has just embarked on her first love affair since the split. Her daughter Chess has just lost her fiancé in a rock climbing accident, after calling off the engagement, and her other daughter Tate has pined for their caretaker since she was 17. Birdie’s sister, India, lost her own husband to suicide and is now faced with a most unorthodox choice. And caretaker Barrett has secrets of his own.

I enjoyed this book even though I felt like the plot elements were all a bit too symmetrical to be believed. I loved the evocation of life on Tuckernuck in its rural simplicity. I got a little tired of all the wealth but in the end it did work for me. It’s a nice relaxing read, perfect for relaxing on the couch nursing Superfast Newborn.

Many thanks to Reagan Arthur Books for the review copy.

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The Snake Pit by Sigrid Undset (The Master of Hestviken)

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Synopsis:
Olav Audunsson finally brings Ingunn Steinfinnsdatter back to his ancestral home as his wife, each harboring a dark secret that threatens the happiness they dreamed of as children.

Review:
The Snake Pit follows closely on the tragic events of The Axe, focusing on the far-reaching effects of sin in the lives of Olav and his childhood love Ingunn, now his wife.

I really don’t want to give too much away about the story thus far, because I loved how it unfolded in the previous book, and that makes it hard to write a comprehensive review. But as in the Kristin Lavransdatter trilogy, Undset excels in showing how sin and unrepentance isolate the sinner from community, even the intimate community of marriage. She also shows the interconnectedness of deceit and grasping ambition with a psychological and theological complexity that you just don’t find very often.

I am loving this series, though I haven’t connected with any of the characters the way I did with my beloved Kristin. I’m okay with that–particularly as we get a nice cameo from Kristin’s father Lavrans and mother Ragnfrid near the end of the book!

The Hungry Season by T. Greenwood

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Synopsis:
Stricken with writers’ block after the death of a loved one, a writer moves his family to a remote New England cabin to try to rebuild, while a fan makes her way across the country to realize her dream of being with him.

Review:
I’m a longtime fan of T. Greenwood‘s nuanced character portraits and sticky situations, and The Hungry Season is her best yet.

I really can’t say enough good things about this book, which takes an excruciating look at the breakup of a family. I desperately wanted Sam and Mena and Finn to figure it out and become a family again, and found myself turning pages as if I were reading a crime novel. The stalker plotline does add some external suspense–her books don’t usually have a ticking clock per se–but the emotional drama was what kept me so heavily invested.

I loved the bravery Greenwood showed in portraying her characters as flawed without reveling in their dysfunction. She invests everyone with a dignity and humanity that made me see a little bit of myself in each of them.

Highly recommending this one to anyone who wants a good, solid read that will keep you up at night without giving you indigestion.

Many thanks to Kensington and T. Greenwood for the review copy.

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Improper Relations by Janet Mullany

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Synopsis:
Forced to marry after an indiscretion at a ball, Charlotte and Shad resign themselves to a marriage of convenience that may not be as unlively as they had assumed.

Review:
Improper Relations has a cute premise, and I enjoyed the little hints of decadence that author Janet Mullany threw into her Regency setting. She does a good job creating the tension between Charlotte and Shad, and throws in just enough originality in her plotting to mask the requisite predictable complications arising from assumptions and misunderstandings. It’s a nice, fun read that even surprised me a little.

Many thanks to Little Black Dress for the review copy.

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The Unnamed by Joshua Ferris

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Synopsis:
A successful lawyer is stricken by a mysterious illness that makes him walk, walk, walk, unable to slow down or stop until his body collapses from exhaustion miles from home.

Review:
The Unnamed is soaked in misery, both the mysterious and the more pedestrian. Tim’s walking fits threaten his job, his marriage, his security, and even his physical integrity, and he’s powerless to stop.

Author Joshua Ferris wisely avoids using Tim’s condition as a literal metaphor, as easy as that might be. If anything, he yearns for stability and commitment, to be rooted instead of having liberation forced upon him. There’s no hidden midlife crisis here, only a man whose body is making him run away.

Tim’s wife Jane loves him deeply, but his latest fit of walking has sent her spiraling into alcoholism, even as their daughter Becka tries to reassure her that the walking will stop like it always has in the past. Jane is tired of picking him up in strange neighborhoods, tired of packing his go-bag so that he can take care of himself while on his walks, tired of tending to his broken body.

For me, as engaged as I was in Tim’s story, intrigued by the unique situation and impressed with the emotional depth wrought by Ferris, by the end I felt buried under the weight of all the misery. The last lines allude to a possible metaphorical interpretation that’s not at all what I expected, but I also could have been reading too much into it–wanting something to be there that wasn’t. Anyway, the glimmers of hope that shot the story through ultimately weren’t enough to outweigh the despair of Tim’s condition.

Many thanks to Hachette Book Group for the review copy.

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Lisey’s Story by Stephen King

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Synopsis:
Two years after the death of her famous writer husband, Lisey Landon must return to the other world where he both drew his inspiration and unearthed his demons in order to defeat a madman and put her husband’s legacy to rest for good.

Review:
I listened to the audiobook of Lisey’s Story, narrated by the incomparable Mare Winningham, and this was actually my second encounter with the book, which I have read once before. It’s one of King’s most ambitiously intimate stories, delving deep into what he calls the “dark heart of every marriage.”

As Lisey Landon travels back and forth to Scott’s alternate world, home to “the well where we all go down to drink,” she faces demons both internal and external, tangible and terrifyingly supernatural. In doing so, she probes every corner of her life with famous writer Scott Landon, to name the darkness that nearly consumed them both.

I liked Lisey tremendously, though I felt like the conclusion to the storyline involving her stalker ended on an odd note. She’s a wonderfully realized character, and a real woman. I’m not sure I’ll be reading this one again, though. I think I’d actually get bored on a third read, and I don’t want my memories of Lisey despoiled.

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Talking to the Dead by Bonnie Grove

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Synopsis:
After the sudden death of her husband, a young widow begins to hear his voice at the same time she experiences a sort of amnesia about their last months.

Review:
Boy, I was really not expecting Talking to the Dead to be such a page-turner! I thought it was going to be an Anne Tyler-esque meditation on grief, loss, and moving on, and since I feared it might be a little dull, it languished on my TBR stack.

The book actually has a solid mystery at its core and some fantastic emotional pyrotechnics. Author Bonnie Grove took a lot of risks with her characters and was not afraid to take her characters to some very dark places. I’m very glad I gave this one a chance.

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A Morning Like This by Deborah Bedford

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Synopsis:
When David learns that he has a daughter from an affair, and that she needs a bone marrow transplant from his son, he confesses all to his wife and tries to put his marriage back together.

Review:
I really did not care for A Morning Like This. I felt like David expected cheap grace just because the child from his affair had cancer, and didn’t think he needed to do any real work of repentance. He was just awful to Abby, not allowing her the space to grieve the loss of the marriage she thought she had. He didn’t seem to have any sense of the depth of his sin, nor sorrow over wronging God. Where is the fear and trembling?

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The Castaways by Elin Hilderbrand

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Synopsis:
A tight-knit group of 4 couples must deal with the sudden and suspicious deaths of two of their own.

Review:
The Castaways put me off at first because it reminded me of The Big Chill, a movie I’ve never liked. I’ve never really been able to put my finger on why, except I know it has something to do with Glenn Close’s smug smile throughout. Perhaps it was because although they were ostensibly reuniting because of a death, they were so solipsistic in their mourning. I found some of that in The Castaways, with motherly Andrea taking the Glenn Close role as the most annoying among them.

Greg and Tess have always been the golden couple in their group of eight, but when they go out for an anniversary sail from their home in Nantucket to nearby Martha’s Vineyard, their boat ends up capsized and both Greg and Tess are killed. The rest of the group shatters in grief, particularly Addison, who had been having a love affair with Tess, though he cannot share his particular grief with anyone. Andrea, Tess’s older sister, anoints herself the most devastated and takes immediate custody of Greg and Tess’s two children. This hurts Delilah deeply, because she knows that the kids would rather live with her–and would be better off as well. Meanwhile, their spouses follow their own journeys of grief while struggling to repair their rapidly shattering marriages.

Elin Hilderbrand is expert at limning the details of relationships, making choices for her characters that are subtle and unexpected. The Castaways‘s complex twin geographies of mourning and sexual attraction held my interest even though the only character I really connected with was Delilah. While it’s not one I am jumping up and down for, I would recommend it to someone looking for a meaty book about relationships, one with more substance than the usual beach read and with a story rich in emotions and character.

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