It’s a gripping telling how his three wives come together as secrets are slowly divulged. The writing is so good, I swear I felt the earth rumble and saw the devastation that it left. It’s a terrific work of historical fiction depicting San Francisco in 1906 when the well known earthquake hit. BUT, BUT, I was totally taken with this novel, the characters and omg what an ending when all of the secrets are divulged and everything perfectly comes together ! I hope there’s a movie ! Despite these things that usually don’t appeal, there are so many things here that make for the kind of book that I’m drawn to.

I don’t usually enjoy books with a lot of suspense or turns in the story and I don’t enjoy when there are so many secrets kept from me. The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.įrom the acclaimed author of The Last Year of the War and As Bright as Heaven comes a gripping novel about the bonds of friendship and mother love, and the power of female solidarity. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about.

Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed. April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno.

The nature of fragile things synopsis