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Loading... The House of Velvet and Glassby Katherine Howe
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Which house? (120) I Could Live There (106) No current Talk conversations about this book. ![]() ![]() The House of Velvet and Glass tells the story of the Allston family in Boston in the early 20th century, mainly through the eyes of eldest daughter Sibyl, but also through interludes into the past for fragments of her mother, sister and father's history. The story revolves around the sinking of the Titanic and Sibyl's foray into the world of scrying, with a romance plot to boot. The main themes of the novel seem to focus on the debate of whether it's better to know what's in store and live life accordingly, or whether you should always live each day as if it's your last. It's an intriguing premise, but unfortunately, the novel as a whole didn't quite work for me. The writing isn't particularly sophisticated and gets bogged down in historical detail, and the story doesn't properly get moving for ages. The characters also have a habit of privately recalling lengthy memories in the middle of conversations, meaning that I usually forgot what they were talking about by the time they'd finished internally reminiscing. It's a shame, as I normally love historical novels with a good, strong female lead. But this definitely fell below expectations for me. Boston in 1915. Story moves back and forth from a mother and daughter on the Titanic to their family back in Boston to the father's youth in Shanghai China. Main character is daughter Sibyl who discovers she can see in a crystal ball while under influence of opium. She can see into the future. Novel is interesting and an enjoyable read. no reviews | add a review
Fiction.
Literature.
HTML: Katherine Howe, author of the phenomenal New York Times bestseller The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane, returns with an entrancing historical novel set in Boston in 1915, where a young woman stands on the cusp of a new century, torn between loss and love, driven to seek answers in the depths of a crystal ball. Still reeling from the deaths of her mother and sister on the Titanic, Sibyl Allston is living a life of quiet desperation with her taciturn father and scandal-plagued brother in an elegant town house in Boston's Back Bay. Trapped in a world over which she has no control, Sybil flees for solace to the parlor of a table-turning medium. But when her brother is suddenly kicked out of Harvard under mysterious circumstances and falls under the sway of a strange young woman, Sibyl turns for help to psychology professor Benton Jones, despite the unspoken tensions of their shared past. As Benton and Sibyl work together to solve a harrowing mystery, their long-simmering spark flares to life, and they realize that there may be something even more magical between them than a medium's scrying glass. From the opium dens of Boston's Chinatown to the opulent salons of high society, from the back alleys of colonial Shanghai to the decks of the Titanic, The House of Velvet and Glass weaves together meticulous period detail, intoxicating romance, and a final shocking twist in a breathtaking novel that will thrill readers. Bonus features in the eBook: Katherine Howe's essay on scrying; Boston Daily Globe article on the Titanic from April 15, 1912; and a Reading Group Guide and Q&A with the author, Katherine Howe. .No library descriptions found. |
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![]() GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)813.6Literature English (North America) American fiction 21st CenturyLC ClassificationRatingAverage:![]()
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