Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who answered his newspaper advertisement for “a reliable wife.” But when Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she’s not the “simple, honest woman” that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious, haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple: she will win this man’s devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted on, though, is that Truitt — a passionate man with his own dark secrets —has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds in unimaginable ways.
With echoes of Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, Robert Goolrick’s intoxicating debut novel delivers a classic tale of suspenseful seduction, set in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its axis.
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Sexual Content - 4/5
4/5
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Violence - 2/5
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Language - 2/5
2/5
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Drugs and Alcohol - 2/5
2/5
Summary
This book is full of surprises. Set in Wisconsin’s harshest environment where winters drive people to insanity, two people are brought together under contrived circumstances and find love. Mail order bride, Catherine Land, is anything but a reliable wife. She is a convincing actress playing a role and finds that being the reliable wife of a very wealthy man isn’t all that bad. He’s interesting, generous and pretty good in bed. After only a few weeks, she is surprised to find that she actually likes him. This discovery disrupts her most carefully crafted plan. Ralph Truitt is the wealthy, but terribly lonely man looking for companionship. He knows immediately that Catherine is not the woman in the picture she sent, but doesn’t care. He’s been without a woman for so long it doesn’t matter to him. He is haunted by his past – all he really wants is a woman in his bed and forgiveness from his son. Their marriage is full of surprising twists and turns. It’s part survival, part acceptance and all about forgiveness. The book is not at all what I was expecting and sometimes, no matter how dark the story, it’s nice to be surprised.
Sexual:
It's not all that graphic, but sex is a central theme in this book.