From "one of the most skillful authors at work in America today" (Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times) comes a taut and suspenseful new novel crafted around her most poignant and unforgettable heroine to date.
When Oprah Winfrey chose Mary McGarry Morris's Songs in Ordinary Time for her book club, she brought more than a million new readers under the spell of a novelist whom the Boston Sunday Globe has called "brilliantly acute...remarkable", and USA Today "extraordinary . . . deeply satisfying." Critics have compared her to John Steinbeck and Carson McCullers, among others.
Now, Morris returns with Fiona Range, a powerful story about a promiscuous woman trying to get her life in order. Raised by a prominent aunt and uncle near Boston, thirty-year-old Fiona Range has developed a high threshold for emotional pain. Her recklessness, generosity, and poor judgment have landed her in more scrapes than her well-bred family--or small-town community--can tolerate. Beautiful, volatile, and smart tongued (or trashy, erratic, and wild, depending on whom you ask), Fiona hits rock bottom with a strange man in her bed after a hapless end to a party. Determined to change, Fiona is certain she fits in somewhere beyond the disapproving family her unwed mother abandoned her to. Maybe comfort lies with Patrick Grady--the scowling Vietnam veteran, scarred in face and soul, her rumored father who wants absolutely nothing to do with her. Undeterred by this dangerous man's threats and angered by the warnings of family and friends, she begins to pursue him.... Fiona Range is the compelling story of goodness undermined by guilt, of perilous obsession, and of the twisted bond of betrayal committed in the name of love.
Jodi B. (jodibraida) from CARLSTADT, NJ wrote on 1/23/2007...
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
This was a really great book about a 30 year old woman who suffers some ill perceptions of the world around her, which in turn costs her some difficult experiences with men (mostly) you end up really "feeling" for Fiona and the bad turns her life has taken. Her mother left when she was little and her father (if it really is Patrick) starts out not wanting to know her. She comes off as a slut, but when you begin to understand her, you start to see that she doesnt mean to be that way at all.
Robin M. (robinm) from LEOMINSTER, MA wrote on 1/8/2007...
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
I don't think I have enough room to really give this review justice. I liked this book a lot. It is very reminiscent of a modern version of "House of Mirth". Fiona is a very real and "beautiful wreck" whose mother deserted her when she was quite young. The story starts out seeming like your typical "local girl finds romance that was right under her nose all along", but turns into a suspenseful "whodunnit".
Bernie N. (Bernie) from BILLINGS, MT wrote on 7/25/2005...
1 member(s) found this review helpful.
Very good. I read it in a few hours. Poor girl in the story is really messed up, but she is trying to fix her life. It is a complex story, lots of twists and turns.
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Nancy H. from DENVER, CO wrote on 6/4/2006...
I love this author. It is great writing and a plot that keeps you engaged.