BOOKS: The Winter Rose by Jennifer Donnelly

"...not since Gone With The Wind..."

The Winter Rose
by Jennifer Donnelly
(Hyperion, January 2008)

Review based on Advance Reading Copy from Hyperion

I loved this book! It's not very often you come across an epic-length novel (707 pages!) that completely transports you to another time and place, where the characters live and breathe, history comes alive, and you are so engaged in the story the pages fly by -- the end comes too quickly.

Many of my Southern literary friends might gasp at this, but not since Gone with the Wind have I enjoyed such an epic historic romance. Admittedly, it's a bit of a bodice-ripper, and, yes, the central romance, between an aristocratic female doctor, working among London's impoverished in 1900, and a notorious underworld criminal is highly improbable...but come on, people, this is escapist fiction, with a fascinating side of history and politics, circa 1900 East London and then on to Africa and San Francisco.

Jennifer Donnelly does an excellent job interweaving history and fiction, with glimpses of Jack the Ripper; Winston Churchill; class society and division in London in the 1900s; poverty and politics; the emergence of Women's Rights; British colonial expansion and policy in Ireland and Africa. All of this, and beshert, too!

The Winter Rose, page 249/ARC:
"Enough already!" Mrs. Moskowitz said, laughing. She turned to India. "You see? Beshert. That's Yiddish. It means fated to be together. It's as I told you -- love chooses you." She looked at her husband, and the tenderness in her eyes told India how very happy she was with love's choice."

[I first came across beshert -- the Jewish reference for this concept (in which I whole-heartedly believe, of course!) in Ayelet Waldman's fabulous novel, Love and Other Impossible Pursuits. Star-crossed lovers, gotta love 'em!]

The Winter Rose is many stories intertwined. I loved most the broad spectrum and flow of characters and setting, the historic detail. All the pieces fit together. At its best, literature takes us out of our normal everyday experience and carries us away completely. It can make for a hard landing at the end, when the book is over and the connection to characters is abruptly broken, but a great story stays with you, as will The Winter Rose.