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The Memory of Water by Karen White
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The Memory of Water (original 2008; edition 2008)

by Karen White

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447855,309 (3.83)19
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On the night their mother drowns, sisters Marnie and Diana Maitland discover there is more than one kind of death. There is the death of innocence, of love, and of hope. Each sister harbors a secret about that night-secrets that will erode their lives as they grow into adulthood. After ten years of silence between the sisters, Marnie is called back to the South Carolina Lowcountry by Diana's ex-husband, Quinn. His young son has returned from a sailing trip with his emotionally unstable mother, and he is refusing to speak. In order to help the traumatized boy, Marnie must reopen old wounds and bring the darkest memories of their past to the surface. And she must confront Diana, before they all go under.

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Member:Boobalack
Title:The Memory of Water
Authors:Karen White
Info:NAL Trade (2008), Paperback, 336 pages
Collections:Your library
Rating:***
Tags:Fiction, South Carolina, Sisters, Mental Illness, Read

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The Memory of Water by Karen White (2008)

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» See also 19 mentions

Showing 1-5 of 8 (next | show all)
The writing was good, but the story was flat. The mystery was no mystery, the characters played out their roles without ever transcending into reality and the ending was just what I expected to wrap everything in a tidy package. Disappointing. ( )
  tjsjohanna | Apr 15, 2016 |
The story was pretty good but it did drag in places and the ending caught me a bit offgaurd and was slightly unbelievable. ( )
  micahmom2002 | Jan 25, 2016 |
The story was pretty good but it did drag in places and the ending caught me a bit offgaurd and was slightly unbelievable. ( )
  micahmom2002 | Jan 25, 2016 |
Marnie Maitland has returned to her childhood home in the lowcountry of South Carolina after an absence of 10 years. She has been summoned by her ex-brother-in-law Quinn hopes that Marnie, an art teacher for special education children, can help reach his son, Gil, who has not spoken in 3 months after a sailing accident. Gil's mother, Diana (Marnie's sister), inexplicably had taken him out on their sailboat during a storm. The sailboat was heavily damaged, Diana was seriously wounded and Gil became frightened to be alone with his mother and stopped speaking. Marnie is hesitant to become involved as the accident is frighteningly similar to one that happened when she and Diana were young and their mother, suffering from mental illness, took her two daughters out on their boat during a squall. Diana and Marnie were rescued but their mother's body was never found. Marnie is quickly won over by the sweet-natured Gil, not to mention his handsome father, but is devastated by the friction she feels from Diana. Diana has been having 'episodes' mental instability and believes that she is suffering from what she calls the "Maitland Curse", a family history of unbelievable tragedy. Marnie, despite her misgivings, finds herself falling in love with the lowcountry again and decides she must swallow her own fears about sailing in order to help Gil regain his voice.

This book started out very nicely with the voices of the 4 main characters telling the story from their own point of view. However, I did have a few issues with the rest of the book. Even though Diana and Quinn are divorced, he does live in a cottage next to her house and for Marnie and Quinn to begin a romance is just a tad to 'icky' for me. The book became very predictable when Diana began visiting an elderly woman at the local nursing home just calling her a 'friend'. Gee, who could that be? The ending goes right where you know it's going, so no surprises there. The author does a nice job of fleshing out her characters and I did care about what happened to them. I would definitely try another by White.
( )
  Ellen_R | Jan 15, 2016 |
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. So true how perception can differ so from reality. I also thought the struggle with mental illness of the one sisters really gave you a sense of the internal torment she went through. ( )
  NHNick | Jan 5, 2015 |
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This book is dedicated to the original Highfalutin and to all those who lost so much in Hurricane Katrina
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For thousands of years, the Atlantic Ocean has beat against the beach of my childhood, its watery fingers stealing more and more of the soft silted sand, grabbing at the estuaries and creeks of the South Carolina Lowcountry, leaving us with the detritus of old forests, battered dunes, and bleeding loss.
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Fiction. Literature. HTML:

On the night their mother drowns, sisters Marnie and Diana Maitland discover there is more than one kind of death. There is the death of innocence, of love, and of hope. Each sister harbors a secret about that night-secrets that will erode their lives as they grow into adulthood. After ten years of silence between the sisters, Marnie is called back to the South Carolina Lowcountry by Diana's ex-husband, Quinn. His young son has returned from a sailing trip with his emotionally unstable mother, and he is refusing to speak. In order to help the traumatized boy, Marnie must reopen old wounds and bring the darkest memories of their past to the surface. And she must confront Diana, before they all go under.

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