A Reliable Wife - bookrastinating.com

Paperback, 320 pages

Published Jan. 5, 2010 by Algonquin Books.

ISBN:: 978-1-56512-977-1
OCLC Number:: 435422229

Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt — a passionate man with his own dark secrets —has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.With echoes of Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, Robert Goolrick's intoxicating debut novel …

Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple, honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt — a passionate man with his own dark secrets —has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.With echoes of Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, Robert Goolrick's intoxicating debut novel delivers a classic tale of suspenseful seduction, set in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its axis.

2 editions

Kevin reviewed A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

Betrayal at every corner

4 stars

The setting is described really well; you definitely want to read this in the cold of the winter, and it's best of you can read it with snow all around. The inspiration for this novel is a book about the dark side of living in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and draw upon it, it does. The descriptions of squalor and adversity go deep, though I'd like to have had more about the local townspeople in Minnesota, whereas the book only goes into detail for people in the cities of St. Louis and Chicago.

I don't fully understand the motivations of the main characters, though I apprecciated the story-telling.

The setting is described really well; you definitely want to read this in the cold of the winter, and it's best of you can read it with snow all around. The inspiration for this novel is a book about the dark side of living in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and draw upon it, it does. The descriptions of squalor and adversity go deep, though I'd like to have had more about the local townspeople in Minnesota, whereas the book only goes into detail for people in the cities of St. Louis and Chicago.

I don't fully understand the motivations of the main characters, though I apprecciated the story-telling.

daNanner reviewed A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick

Review of 'A Reliable Wife' on 'Goodreads'

3 stars

I didn't really like this book. Despite reading a lot of murder mysteries, this book really delved into the dark side of human nature and motives. There's lying, backstabbing,sex, poisoning, more sex ... but not good erotic scenes. I finished it only because I kept hoping it would get better.

In the end the protagonist redeemed herself, so it has a happy ending, of sorts.

Subjects

Literature & Fiction -- Genre Fiction -- Historical
Mystery & Thrillers
Romance