Beautiful treatment of some familiar themes: "coming home" and "abusive relationships".

March Murray returns to her childhood home when the woman who was her caretaker - nanny, housekeeper, cook - dies. Judith Dale took over when March's mother died when March was very young, and stayed in the family house after the Murray family had all left it, by permission. March is here in Jenkintown, on the east coast, with her teenage daughter Gwen, to attend the funeral and to attend to Judith's remaining possessions.

March's husband Richard did not come along. He has many classes and field trips to manage. He did, however, grow up here too, and has reason to be concerned about Marsh's trip.

When March was small, her father arrived one day with a boy a few years older than she, Hollis, who had apparently been scraping out a living on his own. He was in pretty bad shape and had little experience with a normal life. March's father simply announced that Hollis was one of the family now. Unfortunately, not everyone in the family was happy to include him. March's older brother Alan feels a great deal of resentment at this intruder and never fails to find ways to remind Hollis that he is not really a member of the family. March, on the other hand, becomes quite fond of Hollis.

As she grows older, she becomes more than fond. There is a quality about Hollis that draws her irresistibly, and he is similarly drawn to her. Their relationship becomes so intense that March manages to miss a lot of the rest of her life. She spends her time either with Hollis or thinking about him.

But it isn't all happy sailing. There comes a time when Hollis demands March's attention in a way that irritates her and she tells him to go away. He does. And he does not come back. Eventually March goes on with her life but she secretly carries around her love for Hollis and knows she can never love anyone else the same way.

Now it is nineteen years since she has set foot in this town and she knows Hollis is here, living here, still. She tells herself she will not see him but others know better. Hollis himself waits, knowing she will come to him.

By this time Hollis has become a rich man and owns half the town. He has been married once, but that wife died. He lives with Alan's son, whom he has "adopted" after Alan took to drink and failed to care for the boy. Hollis may be able to buy out anyone else in the town but he's not well liked, except by the women he lets in from time to time.

What happens when March and Hollis finally meet? Where does it lead? The romance of the century turns out to be different "here on earth" than it was in fantasy.

Here on earth by Alice Hoffman was fantastic. I read it for seven straight hours & i never once wanted to put it down.
This book involves a girl about my age (16) and a women about 35 i believe, and they have to go back her old hometown. & in the little hometown many unexpected series of events happen.

n  ”'If you ever looked at me once with what I know is in you, I would be your slave.’”- Wuthering Heightsn

It’s been almost twenty years since March Murray has fled her hometown in Massachusetts, and even longer since the love of her life and the other half of her soul, Hollis, has disappeared. But when her beloved family housekeeper Judith Dale dies, March makes the trek back to Jenkinstown with her teenage daughter Gwen to handle the estate. And who else should be back there as well? Hollis. Adopted siblings and tempestuous teenage lovers in the past, March just can’t seem to keep away from Hollis. However, when their love affair is reignited, it threatens to consume everything and everyone around them, including each other.

There’s an old saying that state with age, comes wisdom, and I believe that reading this book was the perfect example of that. When I first read this book in my early twenties, I was still in the mindset that while Wuthering Heights was a toxic love story, it was still pretty tame. So when I read this book by Alice Hoffman, by the end of the book I was steaming. This book was full of even more despicable people doing even more despicably vile things to the point where it was melodramatic and Lifetime movie-esque.

But that’s exactly the point of the original. I think I was just too young to see it.

Nenia was actually the one who inspired me to reread this book. She had recently read it and gave it a glowing review. Mainly it was the for the writing and the descriptions, but it got my interest peaked. Was my blind rage over the fact that Alice Hoffman had seemingly trashed one of my (at the time) beloved favorite novels of all time clouding my vision as to how this book actually was?

Now that I’m older and have reread both Wuthering Heights and this book, I can see the parallels and what Alice Hoffman was trying to do, and it works brilliantly. Take the tale of two horribly selfish, self-centered, conniving, and manipulative people and throw them together and you get a disaster party. What Alice Hoffman did, and I think she did brilliantly, is she picked up where Emily Bronte left off, and even went places where I think Emily Bronte was hinting at, but probably couldn’t due to social constraints and morals.

Make no mistake. This book has two main characters who are despicable people doing despicable things and not even giving a damn. Hollis is even worse than Heathcliff in his behavior. He’s a straight up wife beater and animal abuser (which automatically puts him in the garbage pile.) He’s a cad and a jerk and a control freak who doesn’t believe in loving objects or things; just possessing them.

In March Murray, this iteration’s Cathy Earnshaw, we see what might have happened if Cathy had left Edgar to be with Heathcliff… and it ain’t pretty folks. Cathy was always pretty strong-willed in the book, and March starts out that way. But in restarting her semi-incestuous relationship with Hollis, her personality and character diminishes until she’s nothing more than a meek dormouse. She even partakes a bit in the animal abuse by continuously locking the family dog somewhere so she and Hollis can get it on.

Speaking of incestuous relationships, Alice Hoffman even keeps the cousin relationship going with Gwen and Hank, March’s nephew and Gwen’s cousin. Hank’s mother died in a house fire and his father Alan (March’s brother), drank himself into a stupor because of grief. Hollis then takes Hank to live with him and raise. I had mixed feelings about this relationship. On the one hand, DRAMA. It also helps that Gwen and Hank are pretty much the only likable and sympathetic characters in the book, thrown together by circumstances. And I really, really wanted them to be happy. Truly this almost-thirty-year-old woman was rooting for them. And yet… would this really have flown in the ‘90s? And nobody made a big deal out of it? It’s like the situation with Circe. I want them to be happy… just not like that, LOL!!!

One thing that didn’t change from my initial reading was an overwhelming and intense desire to move to Jenkinstown. The writing is absolutely gorgeous. I didn’t even mind the purple prose writing. I want to live in a town with a town square surrounded by open fields and foxes and rabbits and apple orchards and constantly smells like cinnamon bread. Give me the New England seasons and the changing of the leaves and the cozy cafés and small town traditions.

MAKE IT HAPPEN, DARN YOU!!!

This is one of the rare instances where I changed my opinion drastically after a reread, but in this case, I think it’s warranted. With time comes wisdom and experience, and I think I was just too inexperienced at the time to fully appreciate what the author was attempting to do. The writing and setting is still gorgeous, but most importantly, she took what Emily Bronte started and explored the places where she probably wanted to go but couldn’t because of the time period. What you get is a hauntingly dark yet impossible to out down tale about the perils of toxic love, secrets, and how sometimes love can be so all consuming it threatens to destroy everything.

Plus if you're interested, I've kept my old review so you can see my review from five years ago, haha!



Synopsis: Emily Bronte, sobbing incoherently: WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY PRECIOUS BABY? I DIED AT THIRTY AND ONLY EVER GOT WRITE ONE FULL-LENGTH NOVEL IN MY SHORT TIME ON EARTH AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO WITH IT? ALICE HOFFMAN, I CURSE YOU TO THE HEAVENS.

Biblio-Babble
It’s Like Kryptonite: Every reader has their kryptonite- a genre or trope that they just can’t seem to stay away from and that draws them in like a moth to a flame. For me, one of those is Wuthering Heights retellings. I can’t help it; I’ve got to read them. I don’t even look at the reviews beforehand. I’ll read that sucker. I just can’t help myself. Naturally, I found this book, saw it was a retelling of one of my favorite novels, and aggressively hit the mouse button to put it on my TBR.

Goodbye, I’m Moving: One thing the author did do that saved this otherwise atrocious read from being a total garbage fire is create a setting that made me want to move there. Her descriptions of the quaint, fictional New England town of Jenkintown, Massachusetts were so descriptive and evocative of an idyllic fall on the East Coast that it made me want to move back East and experience fall in an area where they experience actual seasons.

Besides those elements, it was all downhill from there, children. All downhill.

Oprah, Are You Okay?: It’s no secret that Oprah’s Book Club Selections and I don’t get along. I couldn’t stand The Underground Railroad and A Tale of Two Cities is one of my least favorite books of all time. What I gather about her selections is that they deal with a lot of heavy issues and are books that are designed to make you seriously think about important social topics. Therefore, I can’t even begin to comprehend why Oprah chose this book to be one of her selections.

Frankly put, this book is a literary bodice ripper. It’s a book with pretty purple writing that’s full of white people making extremely poor decisions. This book is so anti-Oprah Book Club that part of me wonders how she ever wound up making the decision to include this in her prestigious club. The poor editing and numerous grammatical errors also added to the puzzle that was how this book managed to snag a spot.

I Want Your Sex: One thing I notice a lot in Wuthering Heights retellings are that there’s a shit ton of sex included. Maybe Emily Bronte wanted to include some explicit hanky-panky in the book but couldn’t because of such prim societal standards. We’ll never know, but modern authors who rework her novel almost never fail to include a little steamy sex in there. Hell, there’s even a Wuthering Heights erotica retelling (which is in good company with Jane Eyre Laid Bare.)

This book is no exception. We’ve got all sorts of sex going on here. Standard sex, kinky sex, sink sex, car sex, incest sex… you name it, it’s there. I guess this goes to show that Oprah isn’t that much of a prude, either.

That’s Not How the Force Works: There are a lot of elements of this book that make it a failure, and one of those reasons is some of the circumstances the author chose to have her characters become involved in. I don’t think the author took into account how although some of the plot points made sense back in the 1800s, they don’t translate well into modern times. For example, Heathcliff is an orphan foundling boy that Mr. Earnshaw finds wandering, brings home, and just makes him part of the family. Alice Hoffman decided to just straight up twin and have her version of Mr. Murray do the same thing: he just finds Hollis, brings him home, and he just… becomes a part of the family like that.

No, honey child. That’s not how it works.

Where’s CPS? Where’s the case worker? Where’s the long, legal process to foster or adopt this kid? No one in their right mind would be able to get away with this kind of nonsense.
And are we just going to not talk about the fact that Gwen Cooper and Hank Murray embark on a relationship even though they’re first cousins? And nobody in the town bats an eye at that? And their relationship in and of itself is illegal in the state of Massachusetts and punishable by up to 20 years in jail? THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN IN 1997. It’s not like this law is a new phenomena or anything. Again, relationships between cousins was quite common in 19th century England; it’s against the law here in most U.S. states.

Purple Rain: The prose in this book is so purple. SO. MUCH. PURPLE. If it were any more purple Barney the Dinosaur would have competition. It’s like when you’re reading that book you’re assigned to read in school and you have to analyze why the author chose to make the sky that color. And in your head you’re thinking “The sky is blue because IT’S FUCKING BLUE.

I think Alice Hoffman belongs to the school of “Go Big or Go Home” descriptive writing school. The sky can’t just be one color; she had to use a whole Crayola Box.

”On the day of Judith Dale’s funeral, the sky is as gray as soapstone.”

”All this time she has lived in California, where light is so lemon-colored and clear it is almost impossible to forget there are other places in the world.”

”He knocked at the door after delivering the bricks needed to repair the chimney early on Monday evening, when the sky was the color of a velvet ribbon falling over the hills.”

The air always has to be smelling of something unusual. The food ones weren’t bad,

”Over on the corner of Elm Street and Main, the bakery must have loaves of the cinnamon bread they’re so famous for in the oven, because the scent is everywhere; it’s as if someone has tossed the dough over the town.”

but for some reason the author decided that emotions has to have a smell as well.

”It was probably the scent of fury, which, in Hollis’ case, was overpowering.”

”He smelled quote strongly of soap, since Mrs. Dale had insisted he take a shower each day, but also of some other scorching scent, which March would later come to believe was anger.”

Aca-what? We’re getting way too descriptive over here, ma’am.

Stupid and Vicious and Cruel: Wuthering Heights is a book about vicious and cruel people who are vicious and cruel to everyone around them. I think one fatal flaw readers have when it comes to Bronte’s book is that they categorize it as a romance. NO. It’s not a romance; it’s a character study about the destructive power of an obsessive love. Hoffman not only took that element and ran with it, she plunged off a cliff with it and ended up face planting in the process.

Like Bronte’s novel, Hoffman’s book is also about stupid and vicious and cruel people, but it’s far more destructive. It’s made worse by the fact that she chose for March Murray (her modern-day Cathy Ernshaw), to live. And she made Hollis (her Heathcliff), an absolute monster. He’s not just consumed by his passion for Cathy; he becomes a monster because of it. He’s physically and emotionally abusive to the point where March just starts to waste away and NOBODY DOES ANYTHING ABOUT IT. He manipulate her daughter, Gwen, into agreeing to get her mother to move in with him at his house where he leaves her completely isolated.

Bronte’s Catherine wouldn’t have stood for it. She was just as tempestuous and temperamental as Heathcliff was, and she would have fought back. March just becomes a submissive shell, leaving behind all the characteristics and traits that made her literary counterpart mean something.
********************************
This book was a hot mess. I don’t know what juice Oprah was drinking when she read this and decided this would be her next book club selection, but it must have been some really strong shit. With its overly purple prosey writing, despicable characters, and a complete failure to update the book’s plot elements with the modern times, this book would make Bronte spin in her grave.

In our effort to be loved and to give love, we set ourselves afire, burning up everything in our path, leaving a trail of destruction, but also an opportunity for rebirth, new beginnings and second chances. This was indeed a dark romantic tale. We get to see what obsession and one mindedness can do to a person. It's suspenseful and so heartbreakingly real that there's nothing left to say. It wasn't easy reading, nor will I add it to my list of favorite books, but I recommend that you read it and perhaps you'll understand.

Loved, loved, loved, LOVED it!!!! Ok so if this book was food, it would be a hot fudge brownie with caramel sauce - really, really good, at first comforting, but then it makes you kind of sick. Now this isn't a book for everyone, not everyone can stomach so much passion and long lost love. I, on the other hand, could ingest this stuff until the cows come home - and no sweet has ever been too much for me (cotton candy - bring it on! Candy apples - bring em on!).

I was immediately whisked away and transported by this book - devouring the pages in three days - which is quite a feat with a 15 month old, let me tell you. It is about long lost love and passion, but it's also about parent-child relationships, the role of parent as exemplar for our children and the expectations we have of our parents. It also wrestles with the classic theme of shades of gray, no one being only evil or only good.

I hope you are as enraptured by this book as I was. If not, put it on your pancakes and call it a day.

Holy smokes. I loved this, as I have loved all of Alice Hoffman’s books. I can’t get over the low ratings. I suspect those readers are not familiar enough with her writing style, her sprinklings of magic, her crystalline words. I was not sure where this book was headed-which is a very good thing- because it slowly unfolds. It is a story of obsession and weaknesses and choices. My favorite character? Gwen.

Such a wonderful writer really shouldn't spend so much time in a humorless world as this one. I like Alice Hoffman's books well enough to hold on to the end, even though she punishes her characters with very little space to roam. They are mostly damned to live out their days in depressing, abandoned cold, due to poor choices made decades ago. Is that really fair? I don't know any woman, much less a woman with a teenaged daughter, who would stay with an abusive, alienating man so disliked by everyone around him, when the only reward is being let in to his secret pain... Love may be blind, but I don't believe that love blinds one to the point of becoming stupid. This book was filled with people who roll over and give up, settling for what life has given them. I wanted to like the story far more, but it left me so cold.

I'm technically not even done reading this book yet and I'm seething with hate for it. Seething!!

The entire plot of this book is that love gives you license to be selfish, irresponsible and act like a jerk. I hate the two main characters SO MUCH. They deserve everything that happens to them. I can see the conclusion coming a mile away as well. It's taking everything I have to finish it.

Oprah - you got this one SO wrong!

Awful. Don't bother.

**Warning: this text may contain spoilers**

I can't stand plagiarism. This book doesn't even deserve 1 star but unfortunately this is the lowest rating one can give on goodreads.

The premise - a father with a young daughter and an older son but no wife, brings a strange orphan boy home. He starts raising him as his own together with the housekeeper who mothers the girl as well. The older boy is jealous and hates him, the daughter is fascinated with him. He is dark and dangerous. They live in a lonely large house. When they grow up, the girl starts to spend time with the wealthy neighbours and the orphan is jealous. The father dies and the older boy, who inherits the house, starts treating the orphan as a servant. After a row with the daughter, whom he is obsessed with, the orphan runs away. Years later he comes back a wealthy man and marries the neighbour's daughter, taking all her family's wealth... sounds familiar? No it's not Bronte's 'Wuthering Heights' but its plagiarized version 'Here on Earth'. Seriously i'd have thought Hoffman would have more talent than this. Very disappointed.

The story is basically a fan fiction about what would have happened had Catherine.. erm I mean 'March' never died in childbirth and had she raised her daughter instead, moving out of the neighbourhood but after many years, coming back and meeting Heathcliff/Hollis again. As in 'Wuthering Heights', Catherine/March's brother becomes a drunk and a recluse after his wife's death. His son, is reared by Heathcliff/Hollis and falls in love with Catherine/March's daughter Gwen...

Seriously, don't bother reading it. It's not even what I'd consider a 'retelling' since nothing of value is added to the story, only detracted. By far.

I did not think I would be giving a book written by Alice Hoffman 2 Stars.. but this was just bad. If it wasn't for the beautiful writing this would have been 1 Star.

During these 300 pages barely anything happened. A bunch of unlikable characters acted in ways that made me question their common sense. Hollis was a piece of shit and that's all there is to that. March is just plain dumb and a bad mother, neglecting her daughter for a man she hasn't seen in 19 years? There was also no chemistry between March and Hollis, no explanation as for why they are so infatuated with each other even after two decades of no contact... Also why the weird incest love story on the side between Gwen and Hank?? Nah this was not it, Alice...

Nevertheless, I have some favorite quotes:

"A person could get lost up here. After enough wrong turns he might find himself in the marshes, and once he was there, a man could wander forever among the minnows and the reeds, his soul struggling to find its way long after his bones had been discovered and buried on the crest of the hill, where wild blueberries grow."

"In these woods, autumn brings out ghosts."

"It's still him, that same boy. There is his heart, right in her hand."

First off, I loved this atmospheric, picturesque tale, meant for a women's audience.

The Entertainment Weekly summarized the story as:
"Her books unfold artfully without feeling fussed over or writing-workshopped to death ... [In] Here on Earth, she plumbs the interior lives of, among others, a drunken recluse, a heartsick teenage boy, an angry daughter, a near madman, a cuckolded husband, and three wounded women, with such modesty and skill that she seems to witness rather than invent their lives.”

Sadly, the book did not explore the characters of the men in pain enough. But there was a gentle approach to these men who just could not let go of their hurt and had to deal with sorrow in their own lonely ways.

The story was riveting, gripping, and beautifully written. The prose was outstanding.

Jenkintown, near Olive Tree Lake in Massachusetts, had its collection of characters. Some lovable and others not; some were devils and others angels, or so the inhabitants believed. There were the illusive foxes roaming the woods, after most of them were eliminated since the hunting prohibition was lifted, only to leave an uncontrollable population of rabbits behind. But the foxes were there, lurking and waiting. Even the firefighters were relieved when there were no fires on the hill. Some localities were accompanied by just too much bad luck.

When March Murray, and her teenage daughter Gwen, after nineteen years, returned from California to Fox Hill Farm, to attend the funeral of an old family friend, Judith Dale, more than just a grave were dug in the cold October weather. The past was also demanding a few determined diggers to expose the skeletons of long ago and how it influenced the hearts and minds of the current population in town.

Love sometimes had to be renamed. Love could be set aside too. It did not always carry the sweet smell of the roses from Annabeth Cooper's garden. Nor did it reflect in memories of the siblings, Richard and Belinda's future. The foxes were lurking...waiting. And sometimes there simply was no time for crying. Life was always interfering.

The day when Hollis saw the Unity, Peace and Double Delight roses bunched together in March's hand, he blamed a stupid dog, a stonewall and a rose garden for everything he lost. That was years ago.

Many years later the townsfolk believed that the black snow was a sign of the devil coming to collect his due. But Forgiveness and Understanding forever brought the foxes back into the woods where they belonged. The was new hope that the rabbits will finally be brought under control.

This is my first encounter with this author's work and it really convinced me to explore more of her beautiful writing.

This was the fourth Alice Hoffman title I've read, each so completely different from the others. Whilst Faithful was a contemporary novel, The Dovekeepers was historical fiction, and Everything My Mother Taught Me was a short story, I'm not entirely sure what genre Here on Earth falls into. One third in I'd have suggested love story but soon after it became suspense filled as the love affair which had been rekindled turned toxic. Having quickly skimmed the reviews it's clear this is a love it or hate it type of book with seemingly similar numbers of 1 and 5 star ratings. The blurb portrays it as Wuthering Heights meets The Horse Whisperer. Considering I loathed Wuthering Heights - perhaps my least favourite book of all time - it's little wonder I left this book unread on my shelves for many years. Yet, when I finally brought myself to read it I found myself completely engaged in the story.

In hindsight I can see where the Bronte comparison comes from as there are strong similarities in the storyline. Interestingly, whereas I had to force myself to finish Wuthering Heights because I found the characters so dislikeable Hoffman held my attention from start to finish. Yet her characters were also dislikeable. A mother/wife who becomes so absorbed in a long lost love that she completely neglects her husband and teen daughter. The love interest who will do whatever it takes to get his own way - a man for whom violence, blackmail, lying and cheating are all standard tools in his armoury. On the flipside, Gwenn, the teen daughter started out dislikeable but this character matured and it was she I felt most for.

I truly appreciated the way this author was able to manipulate my emotions with her words. Her characters behaved in ways that I cannot, do not, condone in real life, and yet at times I found myself urging them on in their actions. The more I think on the characters the less I liked them but for this reason the story will likely remain memorable.