Could not get into this book. I'm not familiar with the author but even beginning the first chapter was daunting and nothing seemed to endear me towards the characters. Her heavily descriptive style made me want to say 'yeah, so what?'

Did not like this book. For soome reason, could not get past the first chapter. I usually enjoy her books, but this one could not hold my interest.

Etna Bliss has just moved to the New England town where her uncle teaches college when her life is transformed in a single stroke. She is dining in a hotel downtown when a fire forces her to escape to the snowy streets outside. She is glimpsed standing under a streetlight, by a man who was dining in the same room... a man who is so overwhelmed by the sight of her that he rebuilds his life around a single goal: to marry Etna Bliss. The man is Nicholas Van Tassel, and this is his account of how two lives were changed from that tumultuous night forward. It is a story of love, jealousy, obsession and loss. But it is no ordinary tale of obsession... it is a story about different kinds of love, and different ideas of what love is.

This is another well-written novel by Anita Shreve, with great character development. This would make a great book for a reading group discussion!

A man's obsession with his young wife begins the moment they first meet--as he helps her escape from a hotel fire--and culminates in a marriage doomed by secrets and betrayal.

This was a story unlike any I've ever read. The "hero" of the story is not necessarily a likeable person, yet I was compelled to keep reading this intriguing account of the life of a man obsessed with a woman who didn't love him.
Leah G.

Anita Shreve's books are written about characters living at the turn of the century and are very reminiscent of Edith Wharton's books. The difference is that the plot turns tend to be a bit more to the taste of a modern reader. This is the third book I have read, and while good, I thought some of her others (Sea Glass, Fortune's Rocks, The Pilot's Wife) were better, it is still very good -- especially if you haven't read the others as comparison.

The story here is about a rather stodgy academic and the love of his life, and how in purusing her and in attempting to keep her in the relationship with him, he inadvertently destroys it. The characters are very well developed and the writing is lovely.

This was actually a very interesting book to read. It takes place in the early 1900’s and it is a book about love and harsh times. Women did not make decisions for love, but men did. It was an interesting take of the times. It will twist your thoughts and shock you all the way into the end.

Out of all of Anita Shreve's books, this one I just could not get into it. I enjoyed her other books more.

A tale of jealousy, loss, and desire.

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Man, did I *hate* this book! It's not that it's not a good book, it is, I knew what Shreve was doing as I was reading it. But I didn't like reading it.

The protagonist, who tells the story in first person, is boorish, arrogant and a monster. Nicholas Van Tassel is an indifferent professor at a small New Hampshire college at the turn of the twentieth century who sees a woman during a hotel fire and cannot conceive of her not wanting him, only she never did, including after agreeing to marry him. He wants to possess her, he never attempts to know her, or understand her.

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