There was an enormous and ugly cultural gap between the Haves and
Have-nots of American provincial society at the end of the 19th
century. When middle-class Olympia Biddeford went - as usual - to
spend her 15th summer at the comfortable family summer cottage on
the coast of New Hampshire, she knew only one side. She was about
to discover the other. In addition to the shock of, almost in a
moment, changing emotionally from girl to woman, she finds herself
entering a world beyond her over-protected one; experiencing
far-reaching, overwhelming, intellectual and temperamental changes,
and new awarenesses of her own hidden depths which shake her as a
gale shakes a tree. This is an erotic story of illicit love written
deliberately with a formality and precision which reflects the
punctiliousness of the period, by its very restraint emphasizes the
shock of the disruptive events that develop from Olympia's
behaviour. These are turn-of-the-century people behaving as the
manners and restrictions of the time dictated - until a single
touch sends a shiver through the community, releasing all kinds of
pent-up feelings and reactions, the whole leading inexorably to a
sensational legal battle which strips bare not only Olympia's
defiance of the rules of her age, sex and social class (for which
she pays the penalty) but the fable of an egalitarian society. An
impressive, and marvellously readable novel, very strongly
recommended; by the author of The Pilot's Wife. (Kirkus UK)
Set 100 years ago in Boston, FORTUNE'S ROCKS is a classic of literary and romantic storytelling. Fifteen-year-old Olympia Biddeford is spending the summer with her parents at their seasonal house at Fortune's Rocks. Her father handles her education himself and is in fact a publisher of mildly liberal literature. One author he admires, who also practises as a physician, comes to visit the house. 40 years old, married with four children, he nonetheless embarks on an affair with the girl. They have a swift, passionate summer, torn apart when they are discovered together during Olympia's birthday party. She is taken back to Boston, her parents are mortified and remove themselves from society. When Olympia is delivered of a baby boy nine months later, he is taken from her and she finds herself in exile at a ladies college and then as a governess. She decides she must get her child back, which means returning to Fortune's Rocks...
The sensuality of a girl's rite of passage, the descriptions of landscape, weather, music and light, are vintage Shreve and her seventh novel will thrill her many admirers.
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