books I've read

Anne Hawn's books

Who Moved My Cheese?
If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans
Scientific Secrets for Self-Control
Just One Damned Thing After Another
The Vanishing
Exercises in Knitting
The Good Dream
The Very Best of Edgar Allan Poe
The Chosen
BT-Kids' Knits
Talking God
The Professor
The Christmas Files
The Finisher
Home Decor for 18-Inch Dolls: Create 10 Room Settings with Furniture and 15 Outfits with Accessories
Dracula and Other Stories
A New Song
Christy
All Quiet on the Western Front
File Under: 13 Suspicious Incidents


Anne Hawn Smith's favorite books »

I'm reading 150 Books

2019 Reading Challenge
2019 Reading Challenge 19614 members
<b>Are you ready to set your 2019 reading goal?</b> This is a supportive, fun group of people looking for people just like you. Track your annual reading goal here with us, and we have challenges, group reads, and other fun ways to help keep you on pace. There will never be a specific number of books to read here or pressure to read more than you can commit to. Your goal is five? Great! You think you want to read 200? Very cool! We won't kick you out for not participating regularly, but we'll love it if you do. Join us!

Books we've read

The Help
The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making
The Night Circus
The Golden Compass
11/22/63
The Little Lady Agency
Catch-22
The Good Father
A Discovery of Witches
The Knife of Never Letting Go
Fahrenheit 451
Frankenstein
Perfume: The Story of a Murderer
A Christmas Carol
Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore
The Color Purple
Matched
Cloud Atlas
The Princess Bride
The Catcher in the Rye


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Wednesday, March 02, 2011

The Virgin in the Rose Bower (Mysteries of Winterthurn #1)

The Virgin in the Rose BowerThe Virgin in the Rose Bower by Joyce Carol Oates

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This book was very stange. I have read everything I could find on the web to get an idea of what I was missing. Apparently it was written this way in the misguided idea that rarely in real life to we have all the answers in a mystery. What this means is that the reader is struggling to figure out what the various strange happenings and murders in the Honeymoon bedroom mean, who did them, why, and most importantly, how. Well, you are never quite sure of most of the above, especially the "how."

I also read that is was a parody on the Gothic mystery, but I wasn't really satisfied with that. I agree with one reviewer that it needed to be either a parody or a Gothic mystery, but not both. On the other hand, the book was very interesting. It had the feel of The Moonstone and The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins and I think it could have been as good if there was an explanation of the mystery. I did like it and I figured out enough of the solution to feel somewhat satisfied, but it could have easily been a great book.


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