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The Seduction of Water

by Carol Goodman

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8282026,124 (3.61)31
Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. Iris Greenfeder, ABD (All But Dissertation), feels the "buts" are taking over her life: all but published, all but a professor, all but married. Yet the sudden impulse to write a story about her mother, Katherine Morrissey, leads to a shot at literary success. The piece recounts an eerie Irish fairy tale her mother used to tell her at bedtimeâ??and nestled inside it is the sad story of her death. It captures the attention of her mother's former literary agent, who is convinced that Katherine wrote one final manuscript before her strange, untimely end in a fire thirty years ago. So Iris goes back to the remote Hotel Equinox in the Catskills, the place where she grew up, to write her mother's biography and search for the missing manuscriptâ??and there she unravels a haunting mystery, one that holds more secrets than she ever expected.… (more)
  1. 00
    Briar Rose by Jane Yolen (kraaivrouw)
  2. 00
    The Lake of Dead Languages by Carol Goodman (vvstokkom)
    vvstokkom: One of the best thrillers I read in a while. Even reading in summertime the cold in the story gets to you.
  3. 00
    The Distant Hours by Kate Morton (BookshelfMonstrosity)
    BookshelfMonstrosity: In both The Distant Hours and The Seduction of Water a children's story drives daughters to unravel the secrets of their mothers' pasts. Atmospheric settings, storylines past and present, mysteries, and Gothic trappings propel these polished, character-centered tales.… (more)
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» See also 31 mentions

English (19)  Dutch (1)  All languages (20)
Showing 1-5 of 19 (next | show all)
'Seduction of Water' was wonderful up until it shifted gears into a dramatic literary thriller where everything could be tidily wrapped up at the end. I always forget that's how this goes. Goodman's writing is lovely, and I enjoyed delving into the past and into the fantasy world of Iris' mother, but when it came to a murder mystery, etc., the book lost a lot of shine. ( )
  ManWithAnAgenda | Sep 16, 2022 |
There's a good story in here somewhere, full of lovely writing and interesting fairy tales and poignant themes of family legacy, but stumbling as it does over its own awkward pacing and muffled as it is under the unrelenting egotism of its protagonist, you'd never guess. ( )
  slimikin | Mar 27, 2022 |
(47) This was just OK - a fairly forgettable formulaic gothic mystery. hidden family secrets, an old hotel, mistaken identities, lost mothers, old artwork and jewels, etc., etc. Is it possible I have now read so much in my life, that everything seems derivative. . . This even had woven in fairy tales as allegory which I feel certain is a trope I've read in many a book.

The writing was pedestrian and I often lost the thread of the convoluted relationships between the characters, many of whom were already dead and thus never felt three dimensional. I think if dead people are going to play a big character role in a novel it helps to have some flashbacks from their perspective. I never could really care about Iris's mother or the villain, Peter Kron.

I guess Goodman's novels are OK for a plane or a beach read. The ones I have read (also 'Lake of Dead Languages, 'Sea of Lost Girls') seems to all have potentially interesting plot lines and settings but the execution is so blasé - they are ultimately disappointing and forgettable. ( )
  jhowell | Oct 8, 2020 |
Carol Goodman is one of my favorite mystery authors and did not disappoint with this story. It's about an author, Iris Greenfede, who decides to solve a mystery about her mom. Her mom was also an author who wrote a hit story, but died before the sequel was published. Iris has to go back to the hotel where her parents worked and she grew up to do some sleuthing and writing. Add in the beauty of the Catskills, a dash of romance, and a helping of art community and you have the joy of this riddle.

It wasn't my favorite by Carol Goodman but I still enjoyed myself very much while escaping to the busy, intense summer of Iris. ( )
  PaperbackPirate | Apr 28, 2020 |
Struggling to jump start her literary career, floundering writer and adjunct professor Iris Greenfeder decides to pursue questions of her mother's long past mysterious death and subsequently never completed fantasy trilogy. Spurned on by her mother's agent and a desire to unravel the secrets of her family's past, Iris returns to the Catskills hotel of her youth, her mother's writing haven and the starting point of her parents' love affair. A Gothic tale rife with mystery, secret identities, and dangerous lies. Slow to develop and lacking some of the atmospheric qualities of The Lake of Dead Languages, but a satisfying spiraling finish of murder and deceit punctuated with the images of lyrical Irish folk tales. ( )
  GennaC | May 9, 2017 |
Showing 1-5 of 19 (next | show all)
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For my daughter, Maggie—
true princess of Tirra Glynn
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My favorite story when I was small, the one I begged for night after night, was "The Selkie."
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(Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)
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Fiction. Literature. Suspense. Thriller. Iris Greenfeder, ABD (All But Dissertation), feels the "buts" are taking over her life: all but published, all but a professor, all but married. Yet the sudden impulse to write a story about her mother, Katherine Morrissey, leads to a shot at literary success. The piece recounts an eerie Irish fairy tale her mother used to tell her at bedtimeâ??and nestled inside it is the sad story of her death. It captures the attention of her mother's former literary agent, who is convinced that Katherine wrote one final manuscript before her strange, untimely end in a fire thirty years ago. So Iris goes back to the remote Hotel Equinox in the Catskills, the place where she grew up, to write her mother's biography and search for the missing manuscriptâ??and there she unravels a haunting mystery, one that holds more secrets than she ever expected.

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Many years ago, Iris Greenfeder's mother disappeared. They were living at Hotel Equinox where Iris' father was the manager and where her mother wrote delicate, powerful fantasies. Then one day, she took a train and never returned. She was found dead in a hotel fire in Brooklyn, registered as another man's wife. Returning to Hotel Equinox, Iris needs to find the truth about her mother; there are some clues in her writing, and others in the memories of those who knew her. Kay Greenfeder, it seems, was a women without a past. But as Iris begins to untangle the secrets of years before, she realises that the past was very different to what she had believed, and much more dangerous...
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