Customer Reviews

The Passions of Emma

5 star:		(35)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

This book is one of the best I have ever read and believe me I have read many. It's one of those books that you read and still remember what it's about after a month.

I hadn't read any of Penn Williamson's books before and wasn't sure I would like her. Luckly, after reading the great reviews the author had on amazon, I decided to check this book out from my local library. WOW, was I ever suprised!! The characters in this book are so realistic and the story so compelling, I felt that I was there WATCHING everything that was going on. This book made me laugh and cry. It made me feel angry at some of the characters when they did wrong and excited for others who found happiness after much anguish. I could not put this book down until I had finished it.

If you can't find this book, then read Williamson's HEART OF THE WEST. This book is equally magnificent if not greater than THE PASSIONS OF EMMA. This author has been include into my list of great authors such as (Kathleen Woodiwiss, Anne Rice, Judith McNaught, Diana Gabaldon, Jennifer Donnelly, Iris Johanson, and other talented writers).

If you are tired of reading romance novels that are superficial with unlikely characters that have bad tempers and are dense and stubborn when they should be reasonable, then you should definately get this book. Beg, borrow, or steal!! Do whatever you have to to get a book by this author. YOU WON'T BE SORRY.

Not only is "The Passions of Emma" one of the best books I've read in a long, long time, it's probably one of the most well-written ones too. After reading Meagan McKinney's "Lions and Lace" (one of my favorites) I became aware of the plight that the Irish faced when they came to America. This book expanded on that knowledge. Aside from that, this story of friendship and love was wonderful. My only complaint is that I would have liked more written about the hero and heroine. But, I don't want to spoil any part of the book for anyone, so I will just say this: Don't pass this one up, it will stay with you long after you turn the last page.

This book will go down as one of my favorates! It hurt to turn the last page and end the story. The chemestry between Emma and Shay was powerful. I am a first time reader of Penelope Williamson and after reading this beautiful story, I plan to read all of her books.

Desire burns deep in the heart of beautiful, wealthy Emmaline Tremayne, prized rose of the illustrious Tremaynes of Bristol, Rhode Island. Though cossetted among the gilded sophistication of an early 1890's society, Emma secretly yearns to flaunt duty and stilted propriety, to scratch beneath her own surface and discover a true sense of place in the world. Betrothed to Geoffrey Alcott, the staid, eldest son of Bristol's most prestigious family, Emma is the Tremayne family's last hope to secure a proper marriage and produce the next generation of Tremayne blood to sit among the Great Folk of Bristol. Yet when Emma finds herself inexplicably drawn into the life of a poor Irish immigrant family, her hidden nature is suddenly set free. In Bria McKenna, Emma discovers her first and truest friend. Humbled by the Irish woman's earthy exuberance for life and an unconditional love of family, theirs must be a painful bond, as Bria struggles against the consumption slowly stealing away her existance. A promise to look after Bria's children upon her death only serves to tempt Emma's forbidden attraction to Shay McKenna, Bria's husband. Yet though his sea green eyes and roughened voice may haunt that deepest part of her, it's the abiding love he demonstrates for his wife and children, his pain, like Emma's, of watching Bria die--that heighten her awakening passion. As her wedding day to Alcott looms nearer, Emma wonders if she's brave enough to cast away the security of fortune and society to live the life her friend Bria left behind. If Shay's love is deep enough to allow her to make such a sacrifice. Torn between her two lives, Emma must choose... PASSIONS OF EMMA is Penelope Williamson at her best. Rich in emotion and texture, her story delivers a heartrending tale of how the human spirit is strengthened and set free through the power of love.

This is the first time I am writing a book review, so you can imagine that this book left quite an impression on me. While I would never qualify myself as being an authentic book critic, I have been a high school English teacher for over fifteen years; thus I have read many, many books. I have read hundreds of classics over the years, but I hate to admit that I also indulge in the guilty pleasure of historical romance. I do so enjoy the places where these books can take me, and I make sure to read only those books that have happy endings. (Years of Shakespearean and Homeric tragedy have left me wanting the traditional "happy ending.") However, many times these romances are just
"fluff," and that's okay as I need something mindless once in a while. Sometimes, though, I come across an author or book that I think could rank up there with some of the classics I've read (Austen, Bronte, Hardy),
but I know the genre just doesn't fit in with those powerhouse writers.

This book touched me in a way that I haven't been touched by a book in years. It was beautifully written, and the characters are still haunting me even though I finished the book a week ago. It is such wonderful love story that encompasses all the various types of love one can feel- friendship, male/female, maternal, paternal, patriotic, sexual. I was drawn in from the first chapter. It also gave a very vivid image of the time period, explicitly presenting the horror of the plight of the poverty-stricken Irish in turn of the century New England.

Many of the other reviewers felt that the ending was lacking, but I think Williamson meant to leave the reader wanting more, but leaving it to us to manufacture the rest of the story in our own minds. I do believe that Shay truly loved Emma; maybe that is just my romantic soul speaking, but I don't think the book would have ended as it did had he not. He told her he loved, and he was too honest and straight-forward a character to give her empty words. Did he love her as much as much as he loved Bria?
I don't know that one can ever have that "first true love" feeling a second time. But I do believe he loved her as strongly.

You must read this book. If I could bring it into one of my classes I would, but the sexual content (though tastefully done) would certainly preclude that, nor would I ever recommend it to my students for that reason. But for us adult women, this book is highly emotive and beyond satisfying.

I read everything from Thomas Hardy to Thoreau to the current crop of writers whose work will become classics, but I also enjoy a good historical romance novel for pure escape and relaxation. I don't want to "insult" romance writers, but this book is far too well written and too well researched to sit on the shelves with the stereotypical romance genre. There aren't any throbbing manroots, pulsing woman centers, or wet/slick unfolding petals. Thank God. The mention of sexuality occurs twice, I think, is not explicit and really unnecessary. The book is extremely well researched. It is a contemporary Edith Wharton/Jane Austen, poking subtle "fun" at the mores of the wealthy Victorians and their rigid rules for living. The point of this book is so much more than heterosexual love. It's about unconditional love, a mature awareness of the meaningless world a wealthy young woman lives in and her efforts to make her life count for something. This is serious reading. I cried my way through a box of tissue and be prepared to be shocked by the way the poor were treated during our Industrial Revolution as well as by the way people were treated in mental institutions (even the wealthy). I worked in 2 old "state hospitals" in the '70s and saw the "treatment rooms" where the atrocities Emma experiences were given. Ms. Williamson deserves a sort of recognition "romance writers" are rarely given. This book is sadly overlooked by people who think they are "too good" to read a romance novel. This belongs on the shelves where the "snobs" will go. It's better than any Anne Tyler or Anita Shreve book I've ever read. I'm going to buy some more of her work and pray this isn't an anomaly. I'm trying to write a novel and I'd give all my teeth to string words together as she did. The memory of the way her words moved me will linger for a long time.

Overview: The Passions of Emma is not only Penelope Williamson's most evocatively-written and emotionally-nuanced work, it is one of the best Romance novels I've ever read. It is an all-around "great read" that would satisfy a wide general or literary readership.

Plot: In 1890s Rhode Island, a young heiress struggles to "find" and express herself in the repressive high-society of her birth. She embarks on a moving friendship with a tubercular Irish immigrant woman, and falls in love with a dirt-poor Irishman.

Let's get the negatives out of the way (and do note that there are several. They simply do not eclipse the overall quality of the novel).

***SEMI-SPOILERS ahead!******

Negatives:
1. Several coincidental or overwrought plot devices: It's true that women were often committed to asylums for deplorable reasons, but adding this PLUS the sleigh accident PLUS the suicide PLUS the fire PLUS the ghosts/clairvoyance, etc. seemed like overkill. On the other hand, many people's lives really are this fraught, so judge for yourself. (The frequent equation of rain with the characters' miseries needed work, though).
2. A minor character portrayed throughout the book as sympathetic later commits a very unsympathetic act. I won't reveal how the character knew our protagonist, but suffice it to say it was character category often revealed as a spiteful meddler in numerous works of fiction.
3. A bit of stereotyping: surely not EVERY upper-crust character was as racist and unfeeling as those in the book; perhaps there were at least one or two poor Irish immigrants who didn't come from Gaelic-speaking areas, or who weren't saucy and pugnacious?
4. Loose ends: the Madeline/Stu storyline is left up in the air, though I disagree with other reviewers that the mother's storyline was abandoned. (In fact, the mother's was quite poignantly ended--see the scone-eating scene).
5. BIGGEST NEGATIVE: Because it is being marketed in the Romance genre, this book has a small number of conventions to fulfill: namely, a focus on a couple's courtship, and an ending with the promise of long-term happiness for their union. Given that a moving love relationship is the very purpose of this genre, I'd say the book fails somewhat in delivering an effective love story. Emma's epiphany that she loves the male protagonist is abrupt and fairly unsubstantiated given their past encounters. From there on out, the relationship is a mystery, hurtling into a sexual affair with very little indication from the hero that he has (a) gotten over the recent death of his beloved wife, and (b) that he strongly desires Emma, much less loves her.

*** In short, the romance is believable in terms of "real life" (so many widowed spouses have jumped into love on the rebound; so many relationships where one partner's love is stronger than the other's). But in terms of Romance genre expectations? No, the relationship falls short in this capacity. I won't reduce the 5-star rating, though, because I recognize that the novel will have a broader appeal outside of the genre, and, as such, should not be appraised solely in generic terms.

Neutrals:
1. The protagonist Emma makes decisions in the name of friendship, love, and self-discovery that are not in the best interests of her mother, her sister, her family name, her fiancé. Make of this what you will. In my opinion, this made for a more nuanced and realistic character: would you take seriously a character who experiences a blossoming self-discovery yet never once falters in her self-sacrificial obligations to friends, family and society? Returning again to genre, a character whose eyes are opened to the brutalities of her "gilded age" society, and who tastes love and liberty, only to return at last to her social tethers and confinements does not, IMO, satisfy the "promise of happiness" ending that characterizes the Romance genre. That ending could belong in a number of genres or in "mainstream"-marketed fiction, but not in Romance.

Now, for the Positives:
1. Well-written. This book has some of the deftest and most evocative writing I have read in genre fiction. Although some of the scenarios are dramatic tear-jerkers, the writing itself is never florid or convoluted; rather, it has a natural and pleasing rhythm. Above all, it is deceptively simple--you will read well into the novel before you realize the author's style has quietly impressed you.
2. Skillful use of dialogue and regional accents. Yes, yes, the notorious "writer's brogue" is out in full force for the Irish characters. But, it is still one of the better depictions of brogue that I have read. (If you have read bad brogue or Scots before, believe me: you know it, and have cringed). Dialogue is almost always believable and wonderfully indicative of character.
3. Superb portrait of female friendship, something sadly lacking in much of print fiction and in almost all of modern cinema and television. The relationship between Bria and Emma is truly moving, far more so than the romance between Emma and the hero. Several notable passages describe the entwining of the women's hands across the table, the feeding of berries to one another, the recognition of each other as "mirrors" of one another, and the natural discomfort as class barriers come tumbling down.
4. Lovely depiction of an "everyday" kind of romantic love--that between Bria and her husband. Like many relationships of the time, it began out of social necessity but blossomed into something powerful and affecting. Sadly, this makes Emma's own romance pale in comparison.
5. Painfully genuine and heartfelt exploration of one woman's psyche, of her journey into self-awareness and her struggle to discover her place in the world. I especially recommend this book to men who have claimed trouble "understanding" women's particular struggles, and to male writers hoping to improve characterization of their female protagonists. In the end, it's a story of self-discovery, poignant for males or females, for the Emmas and the Brias of the world.

"She thought about how these stone walls, these white birches, had borne witness to the whole of her life....She felt as if she'd always been holding herself back, saving it, and she had a terrible fear she would end up saving it forever. That she would die with whole parts of herself unused." (pg, 51, Warner 1997).

6. A happy ending made happy because of the woman's choices and the woman's "saving the day." A socialite's fall from the comfort and power of wealth to become the wife of a dirt-poor Irish laborer with three children from a previous marriage--does this sound like a happily ever after, or even a woman-affirming ending? It can be when it is the heroine's resources and strength that will lift out of poverty this well-deserving family that has suffered so much. Yes, it is money bequeathed to her from other men (father's lineage), but her use of it to educate and tend another woman's children is a more subversive use of her fortune than pooling it with a duke's or heir's great wealth (the stuff of many historical romances). And, one is left with the feeling that "the new Emma" can find it in herself to move on from her relationship, if it proves unfulfilling.

Miscellaneous notes: Limited and rather cursory descriptions of sensuality; appropriate and character-illuminating use of profanity; disturbing scenes of patient abuse in a mental asylum. Sub-plots involving homosexuality, physical disability, suicide, body image/self-esteem, rape and sexual exploitation, and the political troubles of 19th century Ireland.

Highly Recommended to: Lovers of nuanced "self-discovery" novels; lovers of books with strong women characters; lovers of "second-chance" love stories; readers who love to see characters triumphing over society's hypocrisy; those fond of the works of Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Kate Chopin (and, though the subject matter differs, Willa Cather). Above all, those interested in a solidly good read that stirs the emotions, to boot.