(The Weight of Water On Smuttynose Island, off the coast o...)
The Weight of Water On Smuttynose Island, off the coast of New Hampshire, more than a century ago, two Norwegian immigrant women were brutally murdered. A third woman survived by hiding in a cave. In 1995, Jean, a photographer, is sent on an assignment to shoot a photo essay about the legendary crime where unearths letters written by Maren, the sole survivor of the murder spree. Soon her interest becomes an obsession with the ancient story - leading to unrecoverable consequences. Resistance As the wife of a Resistance member in German-occupied Belgium, Claire Daussois has grown used to hiding strange men in her attic. But when the B-17 bomber that crash-lands outside Claire's village it contains the man who will be both the last and the most significant of the attic's residents: US Air Force pilot Ted Brice. He is found by ten-year-old Jean Benoit who realises that Claire is the pilot's only hope of survival.
(At an inn in the Berkshire Mountains, seven former school...)
At an inn in the Berkshire Mountains, seven former schoolmates gather to celebrate a wedding--a reunion that becomes the occasion of astonishing revelations as the friends collectively recall a long-ago night that indelibly marked each of their lives. Written with the fluent narrative artistry that distinguishes all of Anita Shreve's bestselling novels, A Wedding in December acutely probes the mysteries of the human heart and the endless allure of paths not taken.
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A labyrinthine tale of truth and deception from acclaim...)
A labyrinthine tale of truth and deception from acclaimed novelist Anita Shreve
Everyone believes that Maureen and Harrold English, two successful New York City journalists, have a happy, stable marriage. It's the early '70s and no one discusses or even suspects domestic abuse. But after Maureen suffers another brutal beating, she flees with her infant daughter to a coastal town in Maine. The weeks pass slowly, and just as Maureen begins to settle into her new life and new identity, Harrold reappears, bringing the story to a violent, unforgettable climax.
("A marriage is always two intersecting stories." This rea...)
"A marriage is always two intersecting stories." This realization comes perhaps too late to the husband of Etna Bliss-a man whose obsession with his young wife begins at the moment of their first meeting, as he helps Etna and her companions escape from a fire in a hotel restaurant, and culminates in a marriage doomed by secrets and betrayal. Written with the intelligence and grace that are the hallmarks of Anita Shreve's bestselling novels, this gripping tale of desire, jealousy, and loss is peopled by unforgettable characters as real as the emotions that bring them together."
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A compelling tale of edgy, small-town emotions, lingeri...)
A compelling tale of edgy, small-town emotions, lingering obsession, and romantic salvation.
Andrew, after many years, returns to his hometown to attend his mother's funeral. Planning to remain only a few days, he is drawn into the tragic legacy of his childhood friend and beautiful girl next door, Eden Close. An adopted child, Eden had learned to avoid the mother who did not want her and to please the father who did. She also aimed to please Andrew and his friends, first by being one of the boys and later by seducing them. Then one hot night, Andrew was awakened by gunshots and piercing screams from the next farm: Mr. Close had been killed and Eden blinded.
Now, seventeen years later, Andrew begins to uncover the grisly story - to unravel the layers of thwarted love between the husband, wife, and tormented girl. And as the truth about Eden's past comes to light, so too does Andrew's strange and binding attachment to her reveal itself.
Anita Shreve 3 Books Collection Pack Set RRP: £28.33 A Change in Altitude, Body Surfing, Rescue
(Is love always worth saving - no matter what the cost? Th...)
Is love always worth saving - no matter what the cost? The car crash should have killed her. But rookie paramedic Peter Webster takes the emergency call, and helps the young woman, Sheila Arsenault, to survive. After the accident, she haunts his thoughts, despite his misgivings about getting involved with a patient. At the age of twenty-nine, Sydney has already been once divorced and once widowed. Trying to find her footing again, she has answered an advertisement to tutor the teenage daughter of a well-to-do couple as they spend a sultry summer in their oceanfront New Hampshire cottage. But when the Edwards' two grown sons, Ben and Jeff, arrive at the beach house, Sydney finds herself caught up in a destructive web of old tensions and bitter divisions. As the brothers vie for her affections, the fragile existence Sydney has rebuilt is threatened. With the subtle wit, lyrical language, and brilliant insight into real emotion that has led her to be called 'a supremely elegant anatomist of the human heart' (The Times), Shreve weaves a story about risk, family, and the supreme courage that it takes to love. Margaret and Patrick, married just a few months, set off on a great adventure - a year living in Kenya. When a British couple invites the newlyweds on a climbing expedition to the summit of Mount Kenya, they eagerly agree. But during their arduous ascent a horrific accident occurs. In its aftermath, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how it has transformed her and her marriage, perhaps for ever.
("A marriage is always two intersecting stories." This rea...)
"A marriage is always two intersecting stories." This realization comes perhaps too late to the husband of Etna Bliss-a man whose obsession with his young wife begins at the moment of their first meeting, as he helps Etna and her companions escape from a fire in a hotel restaurant, and culminates in a marriage doomed by secrets and betrayal. Written with the intelligence and grace that are the hal...
(STRANGE FITS OF PASSION A successful journalist, Maureen ...)
STRANGE FITS OF PASSION A successful journalist, Maureen English appears to have the perfect life. But her husband has a tendency towards alcohol and abuse and so Maureen takes her daughter and flees. In a Maine fishing town she assumes a new identity and spends six weeks battling sub-zero temperatures, intrusive townsfolk and fear of discovery. She soon settles into the rhythms of a new life. But this calming respite is about to come crashing to an end ...WHERE OR WHEN When Charles Callahan sees on a newspaper photograph of Sian Richards, a woman he loved when they were both only thirteen, he is in no position to do anything about it. He has been faithfully married for years, but Charles cannot bear his curiosity, and decides to get in touch. The two meet and are forced to come to terms with the nature of erotic love and betrayal in an age of shifting values.
Anita Shreve Omnibus: 'Eden Close', 'Strange Fits of Passion', 'Where or When'
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A labyrinthine tale of truth and deception from acclaim...)
A labyrinthine tale of truth and deception from acclaimed novelist Anita Shreve
Everyone believes that Maureen and Harrold English, two successful New York City journalists, have a happy, stable marriage. It's the early '70s and no one discusses or even suspects domestic abuse. But after Maureen suffers another brutal beating, she flees with her infant daughter to a coastal town in Maine. The weeks pass slowly, and just as Maureen begins to settle into her new life and new identity, Harrold reappears, bringing the story to a violent, unforgettable climax.
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What makes a family? That's what twelve-year-old Nicky D...)
What makes a family? That's what twelve-year-old Nicky Dillon wonders after she and her widowed father discover a wailing abandoned baby in the snow-filled woods near their New Hampshire home. Through the days that follow, the Dillons and an unexpected visitor who soon turns up at their door-a young woman evidently haunted by her own terrible choices-face a thicket of decisions, each seeming to carry equal possibilities of heartbreak and redemption. Writing with all the emotional resonance that has drawn millions of readers around the world to her fiction, Anita Shreve unfolds in Light on Snow a tender and surprising novel about love and its consequences.
Anita Shreve, American writer. Recipient Page One award, Newspaper Guild New York City, 1984, New England Book award for fiction, 1998. Member of Poets, Playwrights, Editors, Essayists and Novelists association (L.L. Winship award 1998), Authors's Guild.
Background
The daughter of an airline pilot and a homemaker, she graduated from Dedham High School in Massachusetts, attended Tufts University and began writing while working as a high school teacher in Reading, Master of Arts. One of her first published stories, Past the Island, Drifting, (published in 1975) was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1976.
Education
Bachelor in English, Tufts University, Medford, Massachusetts, 1968.
Career
Among other jobs, Shreve spent three years working as a journalist in Nairobi, Kenya. She also taught creative writing at Amherst College in the 1990s.The Pilot"s Wife was selected for Oprah"s Book Club in March 1999. Since then, Shreve"s novels have sold millions of copies worldwide.
Her novel Resistance was turned into the 2003 movie with the same title Resistance, with Bill Paxton and Julia Ormond as the main characters.
Most recently, her essay "Foundation Objects" appeared in the anthology "Knitting Yarns: Writers on Knitting," published by West. West. Norton & Company in 2013. She lives in New England.