This thread is better than Wal-Mart...it's also open 24/7, and the people haunting it at midnight are much better looking!

(And exponentially better read!!!)

I love this sentence from the book..."Enza thought no place on earth could be colder than the Italian Alps, but now she knew she just had never been to Minnesota."  I've never been to the Alps, Italian or otherwise, but there is just something about a Minnesota winter that can be beautiful and awful at the same time.  I think Shelley and REK will understand what I mean.

I've never been to Minnesota or the Italian Alps but both places came alive for me with this book.  Some reviewers found  the detailed descriptions tiresome and repetitive, but I thought they made the book all the richer. 

If you are ever vacationing in northern Minnesota and you have a chance to visit Hibbing, Minnesota go tour the high school there.  It is quite a beautiful and remarkable building on the national list of historic places.  The entire town was relocated in 1918, I think, when iron ore was discovered under Hibbing.  The beautiful high school with Belgian cut glass chandeliers in the auditorium was built in the mid 20's a few years later.  A palace of learning indeed!  All of this was paid for by the mining companies operating in the area.  I would certainly recommend a visit in the spring, summer or fall when the weather can be glorious.  A winter visit is more like going on an Arctic expedition

At last Enza and Ciro get together and marry even if they move to northern Minnesota.  It's a romantic novel for certain.  

Agreed. One of the most frustrating things for me was how long it took for them to actually get together. The first 3/4 of the book was winding up to the inevitable. I did enjoy reading about their lives, but I wanted them to make it official. We knew it was going to happen, and I was more interested in what was going to happen to them once they got together than what happened beforehand.

Lauri I too was surprised by how so much of the book focused on before Ciro ad Enza got together. I thought with the title being The Shoemaker's Wife the majority of the book would be about just that. I'm not a big romance fan but I am enjoying Ciro and Enza's journeys and even the love story itself.

Too preditable & romantic for me. Sorry to be negative. But is is a  DNF

I think it was predictable up to this point. And if the book ended here with them riding off into the sunset to start a new life in Minnesota, I would have been disappointed.  But I still have over two-thirds of the book left and I don't really have an idea of what will happen to them next.  Will they live happily ever after?  Will Enza become bitter about giving up her glamorous NYC life?  This is the part of a book where I will start speed reading to see what happens!

I agree on a few points made here -

Yes, Cheryl, there is nothing like a Minnesota winter.  Especially this one, which doesn't seem to want to end!!!  I haven't spent much time "on the range," and I've never been to Hibbing or Chisholm, but I can totally identify with descriptions of landscapes, especially the lakes, and of the harsh winters! 

Like Lauri and REK, I am glad they FINALLY got together.  As I mentioned on another thread, I've thought the book kind of dull.  I'm hoping things get more interesting now that Ciro and Enza are starting out their lives together in the wilds of Minnesota. 

Like Christa, I'm going to try to read a bit faster during this last segment of the book.  Am hoping my interest stays at a level to allow that.  LOL! 

Mary - no need to apologize for being negative.  We don't all like everything, and it would be a pretty dull RAL if we all loved the book and just gushed on and on about how great it was. If this book hadn't been for a RAL, I probably would've bailed on it myself as until they finally got together, I was kind of getting to the point where I didn't really care if they ever got together.  I just wanted to be done with the book.  LOL! 

Oh Shelley, the long winter of our discontent (apologies to Mr. Shakespeare) may at long last be over  This has been a truly horrible one!!  I think things up on the North Shore were even worse.  Would have been a really tough one for Ciro and Enza for sure!

I love reading all our different perspectives. I would never classify it as a 'romantic novel' at all. If someone were to ask me, I would describe it as a saga, involving immigrants from the old country transitioning to the new world. I absolutely loved the romance between Ciro and Enza, but that was always just a sideline to the bigger immigrant story to me.

But, back to perspectives ... Bil's family (both sides of his maternal grandparents (English) & (Irish)) immigrated into New York in the mid to late 1800's so I find books with this setting and characters very fascinating. Enza & her friend making their way in the seamstress business - taking the skills they learned at their mothers' hearths, and Ciro learning a new trade that he could make a future with thrilled me. 

And then fighting for one's new country, being brave enough to move west ... all good stuff!

Kelly