Customer Reviews

The Seduction of Water

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3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
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Admittedly, this is a good, engrossing book. I am not going to recount the story because it's already recounted in many other reviews but I'm writing about what I think of the book since it may help other avid readers decide whether to give this book a try. First of all, if you'd read and like the Lake of Dead Languages by the same author then I urge you to try reading this. However, if you are still skeptical, then I will give you the following comparison pointers:
First of all, the Lake of Dead Languages is a thriller all the way. The story keeps you reading from the beginning to the end and there's no question at all that it's a page-turner. On the other hand, The Seduction of Water is a little more 'classic', the story somehow not moving as fast. This is because it is also a love story. Her descriptions are still chilling and morbid, but the reader is not as tempted to turn the page as much as the last book. When I read the book I feel that only half of the book is an element of 'mystery'.
If you are looking for a very fast page-turner , then this is not the book for you. In that case, read The Lake of Dead Languages.
Don't get me wrong. This is still a great book with a great storyline, it just goes slower, weaved with a love story that gives it a more 'classic' than a 'mystery' feel. However, the ending is suspenseful and I still highly recommend the book!

Once again, Carol Goodman has woven a world filled with complex, multi-dimensional characters, an absorbing plot, and a masterful use of language that made my time reading this book magical and something apart from my daily life. I often have four or five books going at once, but from the moment I picked up Seduction of Water, I was unable to leave the Hotel Equinox until reluctantly turning the last page.

Several years ago, I read Goodman's wonderful novel The Lake of the Dead Languages and it was one of those books that just stuck with me. I gave it to my husband to read and, shortly thereafter, stumbled upon this book and wondered why I hadn't yet read anything more by Goodman. While I found this book to be another lovely and lyrical tale, I don't think I liked it as much as The Lake of the Dead Languages, though that's not meant to be a criticism.

As with her previous novel, Goodman works several themes into the novel. The main character of this novel is similar to the main character in that previous work in that they are both women who appear to be in a sort of stasis. Iris Greenfeder, the protagonist of this novel, is somewhat aware that she is a soul in flux but she doesn't quite seem to know how to shake herself out of her torpor. Iris herself puts it best when she notes that her life is a series of "all buts": all but thesis, all but married, all but a writer. Her character exemplifies the trap that we all fall into in which we yearn for the things we really want in life but stay where we are because we know it, which therefor makes it safe. Unfulfilled in her career and her relationship, she is, however, reluctant to be proactive and seek what it is she desires.

A lot of her uncertainty is tied to the mysterious death of her mother, who was registered as another man's wife when she died in a hotel fire when Iris was young. Before her death, Iris's mother had written two of the planned three novels of trilogy and Iris returns to the hotel where she grew up, ostensibly to work on a memoir for her mother while seeking the manuscript for her mother's third novel. Iris, however, does precious little of either and, instead, spends the summer at the hotel engaged in an affair with an ex-convict who is her former student.

Though Iris's search for the truth about her mother is a central theme of the novel, her search for the truth in her own life is just as prominent. As her relationship with Aidan progresses and she begins to think about leaving her old and rather stultifying life behind her, she must face the truth about what she's made of her own life. Has she been so obsessed with what happened to her mother and why that she has forgotten how to live herself?

Like the main character in The Lake of the Dead Languages, Iris's quest is more internal and while it is tied to a mystery, the mystery is really secondary. Goodman writes eloquently about women who think they know what they want out of life but who don't quite have the courage to pursue it. It's a compelling theme and one with which I imagine many women can identify.

This book has them all.

It is the story of a woman, Iris Greenfeder; an almost writer, an almost professor, and an almost wife. An urge to write a story told to her nightly by her mother, leads to her quest to find out more about her late mother, who died in a hotel fire, registered under a different name. Under the pretenses of writing her mother's memiors and looking for her mother's lost manuscript, Iris becomes manager at the hotel she lived in as a child. She finds love in an unlikely place, as well as a renewed love for the hotel she grew up in as her parents worked in the hotel.

The writing in this book is beautiful. The imagery in both the fairy tale and the rest of the novel, jumps out of the book and paints a picture of the time and the place. The author's characters are real people- not "fairy-tale" people who live perfect lives. Every time I had to put the book down, I could not wait to be able to pick it back up again to finish it. It was a very satisfying story- and I will be sure to check out Goodman's first book- and her new book.

Iris Greenfelder is trying to make peace with herself, her life, her choices but can't quite move forward with out going back to her past. She begins inquiring on her mother who passed away in a tragic hotel fire when Iris was ten. This fire was mysterious and left Iris with a sense that somethings gone off kilter. So Iris begins her own journey of discovery as she slowly uncovers her mothers secrets.

The picturesque descriptions of the Catskill Mountains in which some of the book takes place are breath taking and will seduce you into inquiring on a vacation in NY. The characters are wonderfully flawed and you'll be able to identify with their struggles as Iris uncovers her mothers secrets.

I truly enjoyed this book and loved the deep connection Ms. Goodman evokes between Iris and her mother.

girldiver:)

I was lured into reading the first of of Carol Goodman's books because of the comparisions that had been made to the Secret History by Donna Tartt. To put it bluntly, there is no comparison. TSH is an incredibly well-written and intelligent book and while Ms. Goodman's books may touch on some of the same themes (mystery, suspense, ancient Latin or in this case, Irish mythology) they rank far below Donna Tartt's on any sort of literary scale. The "hints" of what will prove to be important plot points reverberate more like somebody beating on a congo drum. FIRE. NECKLACE. SHEDDING YOUR IDENTITY. However, with all that said, nobody forced me to read her second book and I truthfully couldn't wait to start it. Despite my frustrations with Ms. Goodman's talents, she manages to create sympathetic characters and a story line that leaves the reader eager to find out what happens next -- even if it's only to confirm what the reader has long since figured out. Anyone who enjoys this genre of writing might also really enjoy Madeleine's Ghost, by Robert Girardi, which has a similar effect in a less formulaic way.

This is a quality work from an author from whom writers on the best seller's list could take a graduate course in creative writing.
Most reviews tell of the plot and whether or not the reader found the characters interesting and if the plot was plausable. This review instead will inform you of the journey in quality writing that you are about to experience. The skill at which Goodman weaves the signifigance of fairy tales into the plot is masterful.
The main character's interaction with the supportive cast is not the issue. Nor is whether this work should be classified as a mystery, or romance.
What is important is that the author delivers a lesson to us all with the ultimate in creative writing. Only a master of it could organize and control this unique format and come up with honors.
I highly recommend this book to people who read for enjoyment as well as those who read to learn how to write. Savor the passages.Reread paragraphs as Goodman describes with exceptional prose captivating the reader right into the scene.

I found this to be a nice, well rounded novel. Some "thrillers" are so plot driven that the characters seem little more than puppets, but here, characters were well developed, even the minor ones. And there were interesting subplots, which enhanced the story, rather than distracting from it. Okay, the foreshadowing was a mite heavy handed, but so what?

The reviews to date suggest that Lake of Dead Languages is better - if so, I'm looking forward to it!

When a writer's debut novel is a smashing success, he or she is subject to second story scrutiny. Such is the case with Carol Goodman whose first book, LAKE OF DEAD LANGUAGES, is an atmospheric page-turner set at a girls' school in upstate New York. Her new novel, THE SEDUCTION OF WATER, inhabits the same spot on the same geographic location, but traverses the terrain from a completely different point of view. This time readers will find themselves at the Equinox Hotel, which is, according to the author, modeled after The Mohonk Mountain House, a historic landmark hotel in the Catskill Mountains.

As the novel opens, Iris Greenfeder is living her ABD (All But Dissertation) life as a part-time writing instructor. She teaches a group of émigrés in an ESL class, a different set of students in an art school and a number of inmates at the Van Winkle Prison. Here she meets Aiden Barry, a very intelligent and charming felon who turns up on her doorstep one rainy night after he's paroled. Of course "lightening strikes" these unlikely lovers, but that comes later.

Iris grew up in The Equinox where her father was the manager for fifty years and her mother, a former maid, wrote two bestselling fantasy novels. One night, when Iris was ten, her mother took off to attend a conference at The Algonquin Hotel in the city. She never got there. And, the following day, she was found dead in the ashes of a motel fire in Brooklyn -- a tragic accident or a vicious murder? What was Kay Greenfeder doing in that motel? Why was she registered as Mrs. John McGlynn? Whom was she meeting, if anyone? Was the third book in the trilogy in the works? Did she have a draft of it with her? If she did, was it stolen or did it burn up in the fire along with her body?

Iris is haunted by these questions even after thirty years. Mystery and speculation continue to surround the tragedy that took her mother's life and, despite her best efforts, she cannot tame the gremlins that invade her sleep and force themselves into every memory of her mother. Thus, when a series of coincidences (?) result in an offer for her to write a definitive biography of Kay Greenfeder, Iris is determined to unearth the truth behind the events of her death in order to discover who her mother really was and why she died the way she did.

Where to start? Iris decides to analyze the world created in her mother's fiction. Slowly she begins to realize that the stories might be a map to the hidden landscape of Kay's reality; the triptych that can expose why her fantasy fiction was so complicated and so personal an escape device. Surely the stories must hold clues to the "real" woman beneath the facade of seemingly devoted wife, doting mother, hotel hostess extraordinaire and successful novelist.

The tales are based on an Irish legend about the Selkie Girl: a seal-woman who pays a dear price when she morphs from one "skin" to the other and, as events unfold, she must abandon her daughter in order to save her own life. Iris is convinced that, when she unravels the metaphors, the symbols and the allusions that comprise the rich text of her mother's novels, she will find parallels to the family's life that will bring her to the heart of things.

Once this decision is made, she returns to The Equinox to search for the third manuscript her mother was allegedly writing; to question the people still at the hotel who remember Kay; and to put the demons of the past behind her while taking control of her life in the present.

The Equinox is a failing enterprise when the book opens. A hotelier of international fame and fortune buys the dying hotel and makes it the latest "jewel in his crown" of his upscale convention resorts. As it happens, he knows this particular hotel and its history from his sojourns here in the halcyon days of the past. He is a suave, smooth and savvy businessman who dazzles Iris and the staff. But who is he really? And why would he buy an old facility that is off the beaten path with little to offer besides some hiking trails and a spectacular view?

THE SEDUCTION OF WATER is a bildungsroman --- the script of an odyssey imbued with a phantasmagoric setting, full of dead-end leads, nasty people, lies, deception, betrayals and a murder or two. Carol Goodman takes readers on a journey as rich in questions as it is in answers. Her writing is dramatic and accessible. She has a facility for moving back and forth from the past to the present, then from fairytales to Iris's real life that serves the reader well. Fans waiting for her second novel will not be disappointed. Those who don't yet know Goodman's work will delight in finding a new voice with a resounding talent as a storyteller.

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

This is Carol Goodman's second novel and it is very good. A central strand is the allegorical tale of the "Selkie", which begins and ends the book: "In a time before the rivers were drowned by the sea. In a land between the sun and moon...". That motif, of rivers losing their identities in the sea, is a powerful one and most of the book is about the main character, aspiring creative writer and teacher Iris Greenfeder, trying to discover her own identity and her relationship with an enigmatic and dead mother. Goodman engages in a masterly exploration of the character's interior world - and it works. It works because it is a delicate, sensitive, and credible. Perhaps one of our most pressing, yet neglected tasks, is to come to terms with our parents. In doing that we discover more about ourselves, and it is that discovery that drives Iris.

The descriptions of scene and mood are exceptionally beautiful. As in Goodman's first book there are the recurring them of water, secluded upstate New York communities, and Gothic angst. The language is elegant and evocative; the writing is exquisite - a wonderful and most enjoyable read.

Is this a "literary mystery" or a "psychological thriller"? Well it has to be said that the mystery and thriller elements are not the strong point of the book: too many clichéd coincidences and predictable outcomes. But the genre is not really the issue. The characters are engaging and I did find myself turning the pages in anticipation. The story line holds together but the plot really serves as a backdrop for a more perceptive and assured development of the characters. "Seduction of Water" is a confident, superbly written book that I enjoyed and which I hope you too will read with pleasure.

David S-G