The Passions of Emma [Mass Market Paperback]

Penelope Williamson (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 1, 1998

Born to a life of wealth and privilege in turn-of-the-century Rhode Island, Emma Tremayne's life is all mapped out for her--including her engagement to the town's most eligible bachelor. Emma's sheltered world is shattered, however, when she discovers the horrifying working conditions in her fiance's textile mill. And when she encounters Shay McKenna, a brave Irish revolutionary, she learns what it will take to defy society's conventions, and experience a love she never thought possible.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

With skill and beauty, Penelope Williamson conveys the power and poignancy of many kinds of love in this moving story of an all-consuming, forbidden passion between a high-society beauty from late-19th-century Rhode Island and the impoverished Irish revolutionary who is married to her new friend. Emma Tremayne, bound by duty in a luxurious, highly restricted world, unconsciously yearns for something more. Gradually she reaches out to a poor Irish woman, a pregnant millworker with a husband and two children, who is dying of consumption. In Bria McKenna, Emma finds a soul-deep friend who quietly transforms her, opening her eyes to new joys and possibilities. Observing Bria's rock-solid love for her husband Shay, Emma begins to find within her own heart a previously unknown capacity for passion and devotion. Yet Emma dares not reveal to Bria that she's fallen in love with Shay. Williamson captures this time and place, and these complex relationships, in vividly realized, highly visual scenes, creating a memorable novel of real and enduring characters, with language whose elegiac tone captures the fleeting beauty of life. --Ellen Edwards

From Library Journal

Born to luxury and privilege, beautiful Emma Tremayne knows that it is her duty to marry well, maintain her social position, and avoid scandal?all of which she fully intends to do. But the brutal death of a young boy in the mill belonging to her fiance affects her life in a way she never expected, and when the compelling Irish activist Shay McKenna comes into her life, nothing is ever the same again. Set in Victorian Rhode Island, this compelling novel hovers between fiction and romance and deftly draws the contrast between the worlds of the haves and have-nots. Williamson (The Outsider, S. & S., 1996) lives in Mill Valley, Cal.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Vision (August 1, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0446605972
• ISBN-13: 978-0446605977
• Product Dimensions: 4.2 x 1.2 x 6.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (47 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #971,060 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautiful..., May 2, 2004

By 

M. I. "krushedvelvet" (Old Bridge, NJ United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Passions of Emma (Mass Market Paperback)

This is a hard review to write. As I was reading "The Passions of Emma", several thoughts came to mind. First of all, the writing was absolutely GORGEOUS. The tone of the book was a melancholy one, but very smart and thoughtful. I loved Emma. I felt like I related to her so much that I just was riveted. However, as much as I was drawn to this book, oddly enough, I cant say that I adored it. I felt like the whole situation was just so uncomfortable and it bothered me that no matter how much Shay loved Emma, that they were only together because of their loss of Bria. Emma will always be second best in my mind because of the circumstances that brought them together and I really hate that. I also felt like Emma loved Shay more. How could he say that there would never be another for him and that he loved her with all of his heart when his Bria had just had that honor only a short time earlier? So, this leaves me confused...but, I cant rate the book any lower than 5 stars, because it truly deserves the high rating. All in all this was a beautiful, almost haunting book. I am glad that I read it,and have a feeling that I will be coming back to it again in the future.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Romance with a Different Twist, May 29, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: The Passions of Emma (Mass Market Paperback)

I picked up this romance because of the nice cover. I started reading and did not put it down because it was so different from other romances. It had all the usual elements of romance...the beautiful heroine, the tough, rugged, charming hero. What was different is that Emma, the heroine, had a family with real problems and issues. Her mother was bitter, father left the family, sister cripped, brother commited suicide. That part of the book was starly realistic. Emma had artistic talents her cruel mother refused to recognize...even going so far as to smash her creations and have her commited to an asylum when Emma does not step into line with society's rules. And the images in the asylum are fairly graphically handled. The problems Emma & Shay must face to get to happiness are not sugar coated.

The hero, Shay, is unique because he is a dirt poor Irish immigrant with a wife. How does a romance novel get around those sort of obstacles? Emma even becomes best friends with Bri, Shay's wife. Now those are very realistic and interesting circumtstances set up in this book to get around. Ms Williamson did a beautiful job. She handled some difficult issues very thoughtfully.

I would like to see Emma's sister have another chance in a book. That would be a great set of obstacles to center a book around-a disabled heroine.

This is a great historical romance with a different twist. I thoroughly enjoyed every bit of it.

10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Flawed, but still fun, weepy, July 19, 2004

By A Customer

This review is from: The Passions of Emma (Mass Market Paperback)

The equivalent of a long-distance phone commercial, this book is a little overwrought and pretty manipulative, but if you want a decent tear-jerker, The Passions of Emma is worth your while.

This is my first book by Williamson, whose writing style is overly dramatic and sentimental, but she tells a decent yarn if taken at face value. The story is from the point of view of Emma, a beyond believable beauty, who falls in love (reluctantly) with her best friend's husband. But the juice of the story is repression and longing, over which many characters torture themselves.

There are a lot of elements that strain believability: the clairvoyant daughter, Emma's disregard of societal pressures, her sudden interest in poor people, a ghostly appearance, the sidebar into the loony bin. Really, it's got some serious melodramatic elements: falling for friend's husband, the dying consumptive, the several suicides, the handicapped sister, the evil mother, the big fire and on and on. Even the weather seems to cooperate: the weather sucks when people feel sad and the sun shines when they're happy. Storms conveniently arise at dramatic moments, rain beats down to illustrate despair.

As the protagonist, Emma is a little too perfect (beautiful, rich, compassionate and artistic too!), and I thought the friend character Bria was a more compelling heroine, certainly braver and spunkier. As for Shay, the hero, he doesn't seem that extraordinary, what with the dirty hair and schlumpy clothes; it's difficult to see what Emma is so fired up about.

I couldn't help thinking that from the point of view of some of the other characters, Emma and Shay don't seem so great. (Think about it, to those who've already read the book: Emma screws over her fiance pretty good, and she kinda ignores her sister a lot. And Shay gets over his wife pretty quickly, and he doesn't seem too tormented about the people he's killed.)

But that's the thing: this book doesn't really hold up to examination, nor is it meant to be picked apart. If you can get over the (many) implausibilities, you will definitely cry by the end and feel rewarded by the love-conquers-all scenario. Read it quickly and without thinking too much.