Falling Angels [Import] [Hardcover]

TRACY CHEVALIER (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: London: Harper Collins, 2001.; 1ST edition (2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0007108257
• ISBN-13: 978-0007108251
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (163 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,118,546 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Tracy Chevalier is the author of several bestselling novels, including the international bestseller Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Virgin Blue, Falling Angels, The Lady and the Unicorn and Burning Bright. Born in Washington, DC, she moved in 1984 to London, where she lives with her husband and son. She is Chairman of the Society of Authors.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

69 of 76 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing, November 29, 2001

By 

demimonde (Windsor, CO United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Falling Angels: A Novel (Hardcover)

I really had no idea what Falling Angels was even about when I started it ~ I only picked it up hoping I would enjoy it half as much as I did Chevalier's first novel, Girl With a Pearl Earring. Falling Angels not only met my expectations, it fully exceeded them. From page one (I didn't know Victorians did THAT!) I knew I was in for a rollercoaster ride of a book.

Neighbors Kitty Coleman and the Gertrude Waterhouse are as different as night and day. Kitty is forward thinking and restless in her role as wife and mother. Gertrude is firmly, and happily, ensconced in the oppressive Victorian mores of the day. To their horror their young daughters, Maude and Lavinia, become the best of friends and the two families are forced to interact. Over the course of nearly a decade, starting with the death of Queen Victoria, we watch as the Colemans and the Waterhouses struggle with each other, themselves, and the changing times as England moves into the new century.

Tracy Chevalier is an author I will seek out again and again ~ I can't wait to see where she takes us next.

23 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Melancholy and Captivating, May 24, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Falling Angels: A Novel (Hardcover)

I just finished Falling Angels, which I read mostly due to an interest in Victorian England but also because I enjoyed "Girl With the Pearl Earring" so much. I found myself deeply drawn into this book. I have to admit it made me a little moody - large parts of it take place in a cemetery and there is a pervading sense of mortality throughout, but I also enjoyed seeing the same story from the viewpoints of a variety of characters. I didn't feel that the commentary by Jenny and Mrs. Baker was "unnecessary," but that it added to a fuller understanding of all of the issues the characters were involved in. A very interesting commentary on English womanhood during the Victorian and Edwardian eras, taking age, class, and educational differences into account.

35 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Victorian England from another view., June 2, 2002

By 

Britt Arnhild Lindland (Norway) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Falling Angels: A Novel (Hardcover)

I read Girl With a Pearl Earring last year, and it became my book of the year. It was therefor with great anticipation I bought this book, another book from Tracy Chevalier had to be another winner.

Falling Angels is from the time period the years following the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. Two families meet at a cemetery, and this meeting has great influence on both families' lives. The story is told through several voices, all the members of the families, but also people around them. All the time we follow the same story though, the life of these two families, and how they react upon changes in society.

Girl With a Pearl Earring is told through one girl only, and in the beginning I had problems with all the voices in this book. But as the story went on this became the perfect way to enlighten the points the book wanted to enlighten. The gravedigger boy had one story to tell, the girls of the two families other stories, still it is all woven into a whole, using a rich mixture of colors.

I love Chevalier's way of writing. What made me give this book a four star instead of a five was the development of the story. The firts half of the book built up a family story, quite interesting in itselves, but then when the book became more and more a book about the suffragettes it lacked connection with the first part. All in all the book has some very good points though, and as several other reviewers have pointed out, the last hundred pages has alot of surprises.

I look forward to the next book bu Tracy Chevalier.

Britt Arnhild Lindland