Customer Reviews

Return Of The Stranger

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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.

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.