A captivating read

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this novel
The author has an amazing ability to "paint" the scene . I love the descriptive use of words.
The characters are been developed in great depth and each character is unique.

One of the best books I've read in a long time! Several plots all wind together into one which keeps you entertained and interested in what will happen next. If you are a "true" reader, you'll likely love this one.

The back cover blurb and front cover picture didn't really convince me, but a little way in and I was intrigued. I've heard good things about Madeleine L'Engle and now I'll definitely read more of her works. Maybe it felt a little slow at first, and suited to/aimed at an older readership (perhaps?), but I got more and more engrossed in the story as it went on, and it became a page turner. I appreciate the realistic perspective it gave to marriage (and what makes a marriage lasting and loving) and generally to the complications of life, church, responsibility, forgiveness and so on.

Katherine Vigneras, a world-famous concert pianist, has retired to New Year after years of living in Europe. Widowed for many years and beginning to feel her age, she hopes to sit back now and relax. But no. She meets her old friend Felix, who is now a bishop at a great cathedral. He begs her to perform a benefit concert for the cathedral. She agrees, but things get complicated as she is drawn into the church community. Everyone wants to share their secrets with her, and now she’s getting threatening phone calls. What is going on? And what about her own secrets that she hasn’t told anyone? It’s an engrossing book, a bit long at 388 pages, and some of its happenings are a little too coincidental. I had trouble keeping the many characters straight, but in the end, it’s a very satisfying book, and I recommend it.

Strange, beautiful, haunting, insightful - this treasure of a book had everything I love in one story. Madeleine L'Engle is so famous for A Wrinkle in Time, it's easy to forget she has written so many other great books.

This story is a continuation of another book, The Small Rain, and catches up with Katherine, a concert pianist, retiring in New York after living in Europe for many years. She meets up with an old friend, a former Bishop of the Catholic Church in New York, and in turn gets involved with his friends and their families. Secrets abound and her quiet, reflective nature makes her the perfect person to hear them all. The secrets are a large part of the narrative.

I loved being immersed in the world of classical musicians against the backdrop of a gorgeous cathedral and all the life that goes on inside and outside its walls. This was a quiet yet provocative read. Just loved it.

A haunting, if a bit slow, portrait of complex women. I’m thankful for Madeline L’Engle’s interest in telling stories in which women are complicated, raw and real in very relatable ways - while also being incredible accomplished - two things that authors often seem to keep at odds with one another. This rating is for the character development and writing style. The story is a bit slow and some plot points are a bit unbelievable. I appreciate a glimpse into a life in the Close with which I’m unfamiliar. Racial stereotypes do not age well. Probably not a book I’d recommend unless you were as taken with the Small Rain storyline as I was.

What a creative writing style! There is no real plot until the very end of the book. Three hundred pages were mostly spent describing Katherine’s past and interweaving it with her present. A really cool variation of romance, music, WWII and faith.

So good - except for the homophobia. Oh, L’Engle, why such homophobia? How can you spend so much time in the worlds of art and the Episcopal church and be like this? Well, I guess because you were born in 1916.

‘The stench still assailed her nostrils, spilled sour wine, sweat, vomit. It had been, she realized now, an early and surely one of the worst 'gay' bars, and there had been nothing gay about it. There had been nothing of love there, either. It was Sarah's idea of slumming. Why Felix went along with Sarah in being amused by it, she could not guess.’

‘After my marriage broke up, I fell apart. I decided there was no such thing as faithful love, and I picked up partners in the shabbiest sorts of gay bars, in a kind of frantic and stupid rebellion. There is no love, no friendship, nothing beyond jerking off with someone in the john at the back of the bar." He stopped abruptly. "I've offended you. My language-oh, God, Katya, I'm sorry, I've shocked you.”’

What’s also fascinating, having read some works about L’Engle, is the suspicion that Katherine represents Madeleine better than the ‘Madeleine’ in her non-fiction writings, particularly in the prickly relationship with her daughter(s), the dead son, the warm relationships with grandchildren, and the chosen family of admiring young people.

It gives me pain to give a low rating to a Madeleine L'Engle book as she was, of course, one of the literary patron saints of my childhood, but this book was really a slog for me. It did touch on some interesting themes of faith and absolution, but it also had some truly horrifying themes which were somehow, still, a little boring.

Beyond the flaws - the homophobia, blind privilege, exoticism, musical errors, and emphasis on physical attractiveness and fitness as an indicator of goodness - there is something wonderful in this story for artists. It's the healing power of the art - that thing which feeds your soul. And this is why I reread the Katherine Forrester books so often.

I don't know why this book was included in the Wrinkle in Time collection. I could see the overlapping in the Austin family books, but maybe I missed something in this one. It was not of the same genre of the others, focusing not on the children and their lives, but rather on some very adult topics discussed from the point of view of a 70-something retired pianist. It was a well written story, but not what I expected.

True theology of love

Ms L'Engle writes with such clarity and beauty that every sentence and chapter is a work of the divine. I loved this book, it's gentleness, its love and its grief. Amen.