Sur une plage du New Hampshire au tournant du siècle dernier, une jeune femme traverse un passage tumultueux vers l'âge adulte. Olympia Biddeford, fille unique d'un couple influent de Boston, est précoce, bien éduquée et pleine d'idées. Son été dans la maison familiale à Fortune's Rocks est bouleversé par l'arrivée d'un médecin, ami de son père, dont le livre sur les ouvriers des villes industrielles fait sensation. Olympia est fascinée par sa pensée, sa stature et son désir de faire le bien, tout en étant submergée par un désir sexuel irrésistible. Elle et le médecin—un homme marié, père et presque trois fois son âge—entament une liaison impensable et passionnée. Écartant la décence, Olympia avance vers des conséquences cataclysmiques, le prix à payer pour avoir dévié dans une époque impitoyable. Rejetée du monde qu'elle connaît, elle doit réinventer sa vie brisée et revendiquer ce qui lui est essentiel. Ce récit explore la vie érotique des femmes, les préjugés de classe, et dresse le portrait d'une jeune femme inoubliable, offrant un drame narratif magnifiquement écrit par l'une des romancières les plus accomplies de notre époque.
Les Falaises de la Fortune Séries
Cette série explore les parcours tumultueux vers l'âge adulte de jeunes femmes sur fond de conventions sociales au tournant du 20e siècle. Le récit plonge dans les complexités des premiers amours, des éveil sexuels et des conséquences inévitables du défi des normes sociales. Suivez les protagonistes alors qu'elles naviguent les préjugés de classe et s'efforcent de redéfinir leurs vies après avoir pris des décisions catastrophiques. Elle offre une puissante exploration de l'érotisme féminin, des tensions sociales et de la résilience de l'esprit humain face à l'adversité.
Ordre de lecture recommandé
Sea Glass
- 416pages
- 15 heures de lecture
In the textile-manufacturing region of New Hampshire in 1929, newlyweds Honora and Sexton Beecher wrestle with all the wonders and challenges that young couples have always faced. They've just purchased a house near the ocean that needs a lot of work, but the couple is dedicated to making it a home. When the economy fails and a single unscrupulous act perpetrated by Sexton is revealed, more than love will be required to keep the marriage from collapsing under the weight of this betrayal. Sexton -- formerly a traveling salesman -- is forced to take a job at the local mill alongside other men, women, and children whose very survival is being threatened by the harsh burden of their daily toil. Repeated pay cuts and inhumane conditions propel the workers closer to a potentially violent clash with management and union breakers. Alliances are formed, honor is challenged, and character flaws become fatal as the tinderbox explodes, leaving old bonds broken and new ones bolstered.
The pilot’s wife
- 304pages
- 11 heures de lecture
Who can guess what a woman will do when the unthinkable becomes her reality? From the bestselling author of THE WEIGHT OF WATER, this enormously gripping and powerfully wrought novel asks the questions we all have about ourselves and definitively places Anita Shreve among the ranks of the best novelists writing today. Being married to a pilot has taught Kathryn Lyons to be ready for emergencies, but nothing has prepared her for the late-night knock on her door and the news of her husband's fatal crash. As Kathryn struggles through her grief, she is forced to confront disturbing rumours about the man she loved and the life that she took for granted. Torn between her impulse to protect her husband's memory and her desire to know the truth, Kathryn sets off to find out if she ever really knew the man who was her husband. In her determination to test the truth of her marriage, she faces shocking revelations about the secrets a man can keep and the actions a woman is willing to take.
Body Surfing
- 264pages
- 10 heures de lecture
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.