Stories--in
real life and in fiction--take on lives of their own in Julianna
Baggott's, Harriet Wolf's Seventh Book of Wonders. This sensitively rendered,
well-balanced novel is told via four, female points-of-view. At the heart is
Harriet Wolf, a reclusive, revered author of six adventurous novels featuring
two characters, Daisy and Weldon, who fall in love with each other as children
and as they age, from book to book, are "separated by wars and disasters,
by acts of God and calamities of the heart. When they finally reunite they
suffer." Harriet died before the seventh book was published, yet enamored
readers believe it would've revealed whether the entire series "was a
tragedy or a love story, whether humanity is basically good or doomed."
Harriet's
daughter, Eleanor—a mother with two adult daughters of her own—despises and
resents her mother's success and having had to share Harriet with the world.
When Eleanor suffers a mild heart attack, her own fractured nuclear family reunites.
This includes Ruth—married to a Harriett Wolf scholar, but trying to lead a
"normal" life while estranged from the family for 14 years—and
Tilton—a sheltered, "special needs" shut-in—who shared an intimate
bond with her grandmother and made a pact with her regarding the rumored
seventh book. With Eleanor ailing, is it time for Tilton to finally expose the
mystery surrounding Harriet's last book?
With keen
insight, Baggott
(Burn) offers an original, richly textured story infused with dark
secrets, promises, loyalties, love stories and the psychological complexities
of family dynamics across generations.
Publication Date: August 18, 2015
Note: This review is a reprint and is being posted (in a slightly
different form) with the permission of
Shelf
Awareness. To read this review on Shelf Awareness: Reader's Edition (9/1/15),
link HERE
