The "New York Times"-bestselling author of "Trail of Secrets" presents a powerful story of love, redemption, and the things one woman will do to overcome the buried secrets of her past.
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The "New York Times"-bestselling author of "Trail of Secrets" presents a powerful story of love, redemption, and the things one woman will do to overcome the buried secrets of her past.
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Seller's Description:
Good in good dust jacket. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear. This is a used book in good condition and may show some signs of use or wear.
Woman in Red is not chicklit, not by a long shot. It's too serious, too self-aware, and--let's face it--far too well-written. Still, the term melodrama is never far from one's mind when one is reading Woman in Red. It's like a Lifetime Movie Network movie, but one of the really good ones (yes, they exist). It has class, it has style, and if the coincidences may pile up a little too thick and fast for some, tough. Go read Austen. Oh, wait, Austen's full of melodramatic coincidence, too...
Woman in Red begins with a prologue nine years prior to the main events of the story. As it opens, we're at Alice Kessler's side as she awaits sentencing in the trial of the drunk driver who killed her young son, David. Owen White, a prominent--and rich--member of the community is acquited on all counts, and as she is leaving the courthouse with her other son, Jeremy, Alice plows him down with her car.
We meet her again nine years later, after her parole, as she's arriving via ferry to Gray's Island, her home town and the place where both her son Jeremy and the now paralyzed Owen White live. At the same time we meet--as does Alice--Colin McGinty, recovering alcoholic, 9/11 widower, disgraced former prosecuter of the City of New York, and grandson of the recently deceased William McGinty, painter of the famous portrait called--you got it--Woman in Red.
Eventually, of course, circumstances will bring these two wounded, suffering, but noble people together, and that story is rich. Alice's son Jeremy is accused of a rape he didn't commit, Alice convinces Colin to take up the law again to defend him, and their connection grows even stronger. But wait, there's more. Colin learns that Alice is the granddaughter of the woman in red painted by his grandfather.
There is a parallel narrative set during World War II, following the stories of Eleanor, the woman in red, and William, the artist who painted her. If the nefarious Owen White's equally nefarious father is brought into this narrative in a key role, so much the better.
Yes, Woman in Red is a melodrama, a contrived story full of coincidence. It's also beautifully written, with characters, including an ex-con friend of Alice's, an African American queen named Calpernia who drops in to liven up white-bread small-town America, who are deeply and deftly drawn. There are even good dog characters, always a plus in any book.
Vamp1969
Sep 8, 2007
A Second Chance
Woman In Red is a gripping, bittersweet story of, Alice Kessler, who avenges her son's death on the drunk driver who killed him, only to be sentenced not only in prison, but by her unforgiving hometown that haven't forgotten about her past mistakes when she is released. Even her surviving son resents her return. As she tries to re-establish herself in the small town, she's also slowly trying to make amends with her son who was with her that day she exacted her revenge, on what is now the present day mayor. When her son finds himself in trouble, it's Alice he turns to. And she, turns to a new friend and supporter, a recovering alcoholic lawyer that lost his wife on 9/11. Together they find out the real source behind her son's problem, never knowing that they share a link to the past, until it's all revealed in the end. In between flashbacks, and the present, we see just how important that link is and the significance of the portrait of the Woman In Red.
