Return of the Stranger [Mass Market Paperback]

Reay Tannahill (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 5, 1996

Tassie Smith's childhood is violently disrupted when a stranger appears on her mother Grace's, doorstep claiming to have inherited the family house and fortuneIt emerges that he is Tassie's long-lost brother, and, after a tricky start, shesoon begins to hero-worship him. But as her life unfolds it becomes apparent that there is very much more to brother Max than meets the eye, and that he has some powerful enemies - not least the man with whom Tassie herself falls in loveReay Tannahill uses wonderful period detail to evoke the Highlands, Glasgow and turn-of-the-century office life in London in this splendid story of family passion and skulduggery.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tannahill's gracefully written third novel (after In Still and Stormy Waters, 1994) is a grand Victorian passion play that begins when Grace Smith and her daughters, Tassie and Selina, discover that her late husband's will has left control of the family fortune in the hands of an obscure young cousin named Max McKenzie. When the smooth, confident Max arrives at the family's Scottish mansion to stake his claim, he reveals that he is actually Grace's long-lost son, the product of an illicit affair who was quickly put up for adoption. As Max rebuilds the family cotton business and his financial reputation grows beyond the British Isles, he begins a lifelong rivalry with an up-and-coming journalist named Frances Rivers, who distrusts Max's rags-to-riches story. The plot thickens when Tassie and Frances fall in love, a relationship hindered by the journalist's aloofness as well as by Max's increasingly insistent attempts to control Tassie's life. Slowly exposing the flaws in Max's story and his character, Tannahill builds the tension into a final violent confrontation between business baron and journalist. The author weaves a marvelously tangled romantic web, adding lively period details about the woman's suffrage movement and the significant inventions of the time, capturing both the pace and the uniquely insular world of the late 19th century.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

The setting is turn-of-the-century Scotland, where Tassie's father has died, leaving everything, including the family home, to a mysterious relative. Thus Tassie and her mother, Grace, must move from the only home Tassie has ever known. The reader should feel sympathy for Grace, but here is a woman who so believes in male superiority that she married a man who raped her and then allowed him to give away the child born of that illicit union. There are, however, some interesting twists in this lengthy novel. The stranger, Max (yes, he is the long-lost child) eventually welcomes Grace and Tassie into his home and heart, then gradually shows a more sinister side. There are hints of incest and a suicide. Too bad the author of In Still and Stormy Waters (LJ 10/1/94) did not spend more time on developing her characters and plot. A marginal purchase.?Patricia Altner, Information Seekers, Bowie, Md.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 480 pages
• Publisher: Orion (February 5, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0752802844
• ISBN-13: 978-0752802848
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 4.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,686,497 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Dull! Dull! Dull!, October 15, 2006

By 

Jane (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Return of the Stranger (Hardcover)

This book did not live up to the synopsis. A stranger bequeathed an entire estate and moves into his father's home with his father's current family. Upsets the dynamics of the family. Falls in love with the daughter.The idea left a lot of room for a great story. WRONG! I thought it would also involve the anger, jealousy, etc. of this illigitimate son moving into the home. WRONG! Nothing could be farther form the truth! Too many chapters of nothing happening. He is accepted by the family, since this is his real mother too! This author takes chapters to describe a trip to the Highlands of Scotland! Chapter after chapter of nothing. I found myself skimming rapidly to get some point in this overly long book about the investigation carried on by a journalist into this stranger. You may as well read the first chapter a middle chapter and the next to last chapter. I threw the book in the garbage because I felt I wasted a good evening trying to get through the excessive minutia to find out about this mysterious stranger. Very long, very dry,very boring,very dull.This book would make a good door stop.

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant Scottish Family Saga, January 8, 2012

By 

H. Foster (Central California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Return of the Stranger (Hardcover)

I have loved Ms. Tannahill since reading "The World, the Flesh and the Devil" too many years ago to count. As always, she succeeds not only in portraying the complex relationships of family but in portraying the evolution of the the protagonist's (in this case, Tassie's) growth from child to woman and the choices she makes along the way which influence her future ... no matter the century, it's a progression we all make. Brilliantly characterized, completely imbedded in its era, it is a story for the ages. I'm devastated by Ms. Tannahill's death in 2007, just prior to the publication of her final book.