At the close of World War One, Amanda Starkey leaves the city and travels to her family's farm in rural Wisconsin to recover from a traumatic love affair. Instead she is caught up in a tragedy that will take her beloved sister's life, and leave Amanda to raise her niece Ruth. What happened that terrible night when Mattie died? Why does Ruth say she can remember drowning? For years the consequences of the tragedy reverberate; the truth, when it is revealed, is both dramatic and extraordinarily moving.

I'd heard of this one, and bought it specially, and on the whole was pleased with it, although I did find the ending disappointing.
You have to concentrate as the story is told by several characters at once from their different points of view. While it's interesting to see the story from all sides, it can be confusing, especially since they're all female so they all refer to one another as "she". Makes it harder to keep track of which "she" they're talking about!
It was a gripping story and I wanted to keep reading on to find out what would happen next, so it was a shame when it ended as it did. I was expecting something really dramatic but the ending was somewhat abrupt. It was a sad ending, which was fitting but I was left with the feeling of Was that it?

I'm starting a bookring with this one - my first one! I think it's going to be a small ring, there are three names so far and I will make another journal entry with the details when the book is posted out to the first person.

OK, the order for this bookring is as follows:

LGinder (California)
Ahythloday (Washington)
Galleri (Colorado)
Pinkrosymolly (UK)
Candyfloss (UK)
and then back to me!

Anyone else is welcome to join and may be slotted in wherever it's most convenient, and will have to be willing to post to anywhere.

Released on Wednesday, May 26, 2004 at Fellow BookCrosser in Postal release, Postal Release Controlled Releases.

This book is setting off on my first bookring! First stop California!

I'll get started on this tonight! Thanks for sharing :)

This book really kept you wondering! I wouldn't recommend it if you didn't have some time to sit and just get into it as it's a bit confusing with the characters and the different times they talk about. I had no idea that it would end like it did. Very interesting and well written. Highly recommend it.

I've gotten ahythloday's address and will be taking it to the post office on Monday. Thanks for sharing!

got this book in the mail about three days ago and just now getting round to journaling..sorry! i am going to start this one tonight!

autumn

this book was very hard to get into! i started reading it the day i journaled it but couldn't get past the first twenty pages..it just didn't hold my interest much. i put it down for awhile and recently picked it up, determined to get through it. it did get better but i wasn't much surprised by the ending maybe. it seemed that the author left lots of clues.

as i said, the book ended up okay but i gave it a four because it was so hard to pick up! i don't know that i would've finished it if it hadn't been a bookring..

on its way to galleri!

I really enjoyed the book and was wanting to know exactly what happened that Ruth's mom died. Lots of back and forth between charactor's speaking, and alot of going from past to present.... bit confusing on those points.

I was really disappointed by the ending. I was led up to believe that it would be an awesome ending... but just stops with leaving the reader unanswered questions!

On it's way to Pinkrosymolly in the UK.

Thanks arrived in the mail safely. Will read ASAP.

As others have commented a bit hard to get into at first. Took me a while to read this little book as I read over Christmas and was too busy to read much. I read the book waiting for something big to happen but it never did!!!!!!!!An interesting well written book.

Released on Friday, January 07, 2005 at about 10:00:00 AM BX time (GMT-06:00) Central Time (US & Canada) at Postal Release in Chesterfield, England United Kingdom.

RELEASE NOTES:

Posted off to Candy floss today!!