Rating: 
Summary: High romance, not yet perfected
Review: While this is certainly not the strongest of Anita Shreve's novels, it does offer some lovely writing and some tasteful, quite sexy, scenes involving its two heroes -- a middle aged man and woman whose affection for one another has been rekindled after 30 years apart. Some reviewers have asserted that this novel lacks adequate character development. I have a contrarian point of view in that I think Shreve deliberately omits describing the internal moral struggles of her characters because they really don't experience much moral struggle. I see them as being caught up in the powerful flow of emotion, of a love that they believe was destined to occur, and suspect that what drives other reviewers' antipathy toward this novel is not lack of character development, but the characters' lack of self-recrimination. In any case, I rather enjoyed this book and, as a big Shreve fan, fancy that I can see the budding of her considerable talents in this early example of her work. It is also a refreshing change to read about middle-aged characters who are coping with the effects of aging on their bodies, and the awkward feelings that arise when one engages in a romantic relationship at an age where physical beauty is on the wane. These are challenging issues for many people that are not often addressed in popular fiction. So while I do not recommend this novel without reservation, I do recommend it to those who have enjoyed the more sophisticated Shreve books and are now down to reading her earlier works while awaiting a new book from her.
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