"I'll never break my husband's heart and the vows I made at the altar.", 27 January 2015

This review is from: Sleeping Fires (Hardcover)
Written in the 1920s but set in 1860s San Francisco 'Society', the novel opens with the city ladies waiting to meet and appraise the new bride of 'the most popular and fashionable' local doctor. Madeline is a lovely and intelligent girl, but sadly Dr Talbot doesn't appreciate it: 'For her mind he appeared to have a good natured masculine contempt. He talked to her as he would to a fascinating little girl.' Indeed, he actively disapproves of her reading and becoming a 'bluestocking', naively preferring her to go for country walks with writer Langdon Masters. Meanwhile the ladies look on for any hint of scandal...
(spoiler alert) So far so good...But the latter part of the novel became, to my mind, just too ridiculous for words. With Dr Talbot cottoning on to the burgeoning love between them, Masters is banished to New York, where he ends up in the gutter, living in a sordid area with a succession of low women. Madeline, meanwhile, for all she won't consider divorce, resolves to drink herself to death too. I'm afraid I had no sympathy with her, nor was I particularly convinced by her as a character.
Very weak read.
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