Product Description

Set 100 years ago in Boston, FORTUNE'S ROCKS is a classic of literary and romantic storytelling. Fifteen-year-old Olympia Biddeford is spending the summer with her parents at their seasonal house at Fortune's Rocks. Her father handles her education himself and is in fact a publisher of mildly liberal literature. One author he admires, who also practises as a physician, comes to visit the house. 40 years old, married with four children, he nonetheless embarks on an affair with the girl. They have a swift, passionate summer, torn apart when they are discovered together during Olympia's birthday party. She is taken back to Boston, her parents are mortified and remove themselves from society. When Olympia gives birth to a baby boy nine months later, he is taken from her and she finds herself in exile at a ladies college and then as a governess. She decides she must get her child back, which means returning to Fortune's Rocks...The sensuality of a girl's rite of passage, the descriptions of landscape, weather, music and light, are vintage Shreve and her seventh novel will thrill her many admirers.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #33096 in Books
• Published on: 2001-01-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 453 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Hester Prynne never had it so good! The year is 1899, and Olympia Biddeford, the headstrong daughter of a Boston Brahmin family, has decided to test the limits of her cloistered world. Spending the summer at her father's New Hampshire estate, the teenage heroine of Fortune's Rocks is entranced with the visiting salon of artists, writers and lawyers. She's especially captivated, however, by John Haskell, a charismatic physician who ministers to the blue-collar community in the nearby mill towns. This middle-aged Good Samaritan hires Olympia to assist him as a nurse and their collaboration soon evolves into a fiery love affair. Alas, it's only a matter of weeks before this passionate exercise in managed care is exposed--with disastrous consequences for the young, impregnated heroine. Even her adoring father now considers her "an over-plump, 16-year-old girl whose judgement can no longer be trusted" and insists that she break off her relationship:

"There is nothing more to be said on this subject", he says. She bites her lip to keep from crying out further. She holds the arms of her chair so tightly she later will have cramps in her fingers. She will refuse to obey him, she thinks. She will accept his implied challenge and set off on her own. But in the next moment, she asks herself: How will she be able to do that?

Without her father's support, she cannot hope to survive. And if she herself does not survive, then a child cannot live."

In the end, Anita Shreve's seventh novel is a polished, supremely entertaining variation on Wuthering Heights, with Olympia and Haskell sitting in for Catherine and Heathcliff. The author did some meticulous research for her New England background, which gives this study of one particular wayward woman some extra historical heft. Some readers may find the plot twists a bit pat. And despite Olympia's efforts to be an independent woman, she overcomes her trials largely as a result of her family's wealth and station, which takes the edge off Shreve's feminist message. Still, Fortune's Rocks is a romance in the classic sense of the word and should be enjoyed as such, unless the reader is absolutely allergic to happy endings. --Ted Leventhal

Review
'Exceptionally fine ... Shreve writes with power and passion' DAILY EXPRESS; 'A powerful portrait of that dangerous limbo of a girl's adolescence when she is no longer a child but not yet a woman' LITERARY REVIEW; 'A quiet but highly charged novel in which intense emotion is counterpointed with an evocation of landscape' Elizabeth Buchan, THE TIMES; 'It seems like a mighty poem. FORTUNE'S ROCKS, you know, will prove much more than a place name' OBSERVER

Review
'Engagingly read by Blair Brown.' (CHOICE )

'There are depths of feeling in this book that modern novelists rarely plumb.' (THE GUARDIAN )

Customer Reviews

EVOCATIVE AND PROVOCATIVE...
This is a well-crafted and lyrically written narrative, evocative of an era gone by. It tells the story of Olympia Biddleford, the unusually erudite and well educated fifteen year old daughter of a Boston Brahmin. One hot and steamy summer in turn of the century New Hampshire, she falls passionately and utterly in love with her father's friend, forty one year old John Haskell, a physician and man of letters, who has a wife and four children. Captivated by his intelligence and crusade on behalf of exploited mill workers, she and he, drawn to her youth, intelligence and beauty, leave all thought of propriety behind. Breaking every moral and social taboo of the time, they enter into a forbidden, illicit love affair, which is ultimately doomed, with cataclysmic ramifications for all whom the affair touches.

The book explores how this young woman copes with the loss of her life in a larger social milieu, once the affair enters into the public domain, through the machinations of another. She and the doctor, as well as their respective families, are tainted with scandal and presented with the fruit of that illicit love. The book explores how Olympia must reconstruct the tatters of her life into one in which she is finally able to expiate her youthful indiscretion within the context of the mores of the time. In doing so, she goes on a voyage of
self-discovery. Yet, through it all, she never once renounces her devotion to the man who introduced her to the throes of a passion so deep and profound that she gave herself over to it, body and soul. How these star-crossed lovers finally come to terms with their grand passion is a story that the author seamlessly weaves into a book that will hold the reader in its thrall.

EVOCATIVE AND PROVOCATIVE...
This is a well crafted and lyrically written narrative, evocative of an era gone by. It tells the story of Olympia Biddleford, the unusually erudite and well educated fifteen year old daughter of a Boston Brahmin. One hot and steamy summer in turn of the century New Hampshire, she falls passionately and utterly in love with her father's friend, forty one year old John Haskell, a physician and man of letters, who has a wife and four children. Captivated by his intelligence and crusade on behalf of exploited mill workers, she and he, drawn to her youth, intelligence and beauty, leave all thought of propriety behind and, breaking every moral and social taboo of the time, enter into a forbidden, illicit love affair, that is ultimately doomed, with cataclysmic ramifications for all whom the affair touches.

The book explores how this young woman copes with the loss of her life in a larger social milieu, once the affair enters into the public domain through the machinations of another. She, the doctor, and their respective families are tainted with scandal and presented with the fruit of that illicit love. The book explores how Olympia must reconstruct the tatters of her life into one in which she is finally able to expiate her youthful indiscretion within the context of the mores of the time. In doing so, she goes on a voyage of self discovery. Yet, through it all, she never once renounces her devotion to the man who introduced her to the throes of a passion so deep and profound that she gave herself over to it, body and soul. How these star crossed lovers finally come to terms with their grand passion is a story which the author seamlessly weaves into a book that will hold the reader in its thrall.

I couldn't put it down
I found the book "Fortunes Rock" completely absorbing... once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. I read it all through math, social studies, English and Spanish! Olympia's and Haskell's love for each other is captivating. It's the kind of love everyone longs for. Though society and age threatens to keep them apart they will do anything for the love they have... all this mixed in with a girls coming of age and a mothers fight for her son....its a must read! I am now working my way through all of Anita Shreve's books.