

This story is told by Elizabeth, a woman who was involved with a murderer (Bell) who was just released from prison. As the story unfolds, we learn about the events that got her locked away and in doing so Elizabeth reveals her obsession with Bell. She doesn't reveal the victim until the end, which kept me in suspense, but I became frustrated with her dropping hints and refusing to follow through - there's a lot of "if I had only known" and "so I thought" and "I believed her at the time" etc. I wanted to like this book, but the narrator's meandering style did not work for me. Also, she and the other characters were hard to relate to. I guess I was expecting more suspense. I'd imagine if I'd read The Wings of the Dove before this, I would have put the book down midway (there were a lot of references to it in the book and when I looked it up at the end, I found that the plots are pretty similar).
This story is told by Elizabeth, a woman who was involved with a murderer (Bell) who was just released from prison. As the story unfolds, we learn about the events that got her locked away and in doing so Elizabeth reveals her obsession with Bell. She doesn't reveal the victim until the end, which kept me in suspense, but I became frustrated with her dropping hints and refusing to follow through - there's a lot of "if I had only known" and "so I thought" and "I believed her at the time" etc. I wanted to like this book, but the narrator's meandering style did not work for me. Also, she and the other characters were hard to relate to. I guess I was expecting more suspense. I'd imagine if I'd read The Wings of the Dove before this, I would have put the book down midway (there were a lot of references to it in the book and when I looked it up at the end, I found that the plots are pretty similar).