Amazon.co.uk Review
Anita Shreve's new novel Sea Glass represents a remarkable advance. She previously caught the attention of many readers with Fortune's Rocks and The Pilot's Wife, beautifully crafted novels with rich and subtly observed characterisation. But however impressive those books were, Sea Glass has the same adroit creation of character, but the prose is even more rich and allusive. This is a story of the human heart, of the demands of the past, and of the necessity for pragmatism in human relationships. It's 1929, and Honora Beecher and her husband Sexton are enjoying their new marriage in a cottage on the coast of New Hampshire. Honora is renovating the rundown property and searching for pieces of coloured glass washed up on the beach. Sexton attempts to buy the house they both adore, but with disastrous results: like many other Americans, he is a victim of the stock market crash and is financially wiped out. He is forced to work in a nearby mill, where a labour conflict is having violent results. The couple's struggle to maintain their marriage in the face of dangerous forces that threaten to overwhelm them is vividly and poignantly told.
Shreve has written nine novels and throughout her work she has painstakingly honed her storytelling skills with elegance and intelligence. She is particularly skilful at depicting interlocking lives, as in Sea Glass, and adroitly invests each with its own portion of love and tragedy. If you want to be one of the "early adopters" of Shreve's cherishable novels, now is the time:

At the centre of the story are Honora, bank clerk and Sexton, typewriter salesman who meet and marry at the start of the great depression. The love and hardship they face together is beautifully told by Anita Shreve in her very visual style. I am definitely becoming a fan of her work having now read four of her novels including this one.
The main characters all have chapters assigned to them throughout the novel so we can understand how the story progresses from their point of view. We are introduced in this way to McDermott, mill worker and Alphonse the young boy he has chosen to protect, Vivian, wealthy socialite an unlikely group but whose stories all link and merge. There are also a few chapters written as letters from Honora’s mother Alice that helps to link the background information together.

Set in New Hampshire during the troubled years of 1929/30, Sea Glass is about the coming together of a motley collection of people in troubled times. It was a strange time for them all as although the strikes and Wall Street crash were affecting them all they were happy that summer of 1930, in their innocence not knowing how disastrously it would all end. As the reader I certainly had no inkling of how things were going to turn out, for me the sign of a well told story. A heartbreaking and vividly descriptive insight into the far reaching consequences of The Wall Street crash and the mill strikes.

I also found absolutely fascinating the descriptions of Sea Glass, those colourful shards of glass smoothed by the sea that one sometimes comes across on beaches. Anita Shreve cleverly uses Honora’s collection of these shards as a link throughout.

CONTROLLED RELEASE NOTES:

A surprise RABCK from her Wishlist. Chrisim is expecting a book but does not know which one I am sending. Hope you enjoy.

Happy reading

LindyLouMac

Grazie! I was kindly RABCKed by LindyLouMac :) This book arrived yesterday. I haven't read this yet so thank you so much!

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

Take it - read it - have fun!

I am participating in Triamy's releasing challenge Sanatarkkaan with this book.