Shattered Silk (1986)

Related image

Listening: Manic Monday

Georgetown Trilogy #2

Reeling from the end of her decade-long marriage, Karen Nevitt seeks temporary refuge with her Aunt Ruth and Uncle Pat in their Georgetown home. With her relatives on holiday, Karen embarks on a new business venture, urged on by old friends--a vintage clothing  shop. Along the way Karen finds a friend and business partner in widowed would-be accountant Cheryl...who just happens to be the sister of her  ancient flame, Mark Brinckley. As Karen wrestles with old feelings and resurrecting her battered self-esteem, someone starts to play eerie tricks on her. But are they just pranks, or is something more malicious at play?


An actual sequel to Ammie, Come Home, it's fun to compare just how fun MPM's feminism has come in fifteen years. This time the heroine is a cranky, emotionally beaten down 28 year old struggling to find herself in the wake of the falling apart of her marriage. That alone is a huge change from mild-mannered, lady-like Ruth. The characters are also broader in scope, more complex, and given louder voices.

Ruth, in Ammie, had a bad first marriage too--one so physically violent that his death in WWII came as miraculous relief to her. But Karen, one of her nieces and pseudo-daughters, is instead recovering her identity after an emotionally abusive relationship to a wet rag of a man. And that's what Shattered Silk mainly is--the story of Karen beginning a vintage clothing business, making a friend, reigniting a romantic spark with an old flame, and beginning to acquire some assertiveness. 

Her growth as a character into someone who is body-positive, confident, and very, very courageous is exciting, and delightful. I maintain Karen is one of her best heroines.

A favorite element of this book, is it's laughing, subtle references to Ammie's ghost stories, that leave you half wondering if it's old ghostly companions come back to play bothering Karen...until it becomes very obvious that's not the issue. I really respect MPM's willingness to play with our expectations, and then give us a straightforward mystery, which she favors briefly in this period under her Michaels pe name.

Rating: ****

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Dead Sea Cipher (1970)

Image
Listening: Let It Be When Dinah van der Lyn agrees to take a trip through Palestine and Israel in the place of her wheelchair-bound, Biblical scholar father, she thinks it's just a nice prelude to her first operatic role in Germany. But then a scream rends the night at her hotel, and she seems to be the only to have heard it. And when a smooth-talking spy and a fierce archaeologist start dogging her footsteps, it becomes obvious she's become part of something much bigger than a mere tourist trip through the Holy Land. International espionage sweeps her forward on an irresistible tide of romance and adventure to the wadis of the Dead Sea.
Read more

Walker in the Shadows (1979)

Image
                                                            Listening: I Was Made for Lovin' You Recently widowed Pat Robbins and her teenage son Mark are intrigued by the neighbors who move in to the house next door--a twin to their own beloved mid-nineteenth century American Gothic. Their relationship starts roughly when Mark's interest in lovely young Kathy is repulsed by her stern father. But when something ghostly takes a malevolent interest in Kathy, the families draw together to try and unravel whatever grudge the two old houses have been brooding over for centuries...
Read more

The Wizard's Daughter (1980)

Image
  Daydream Believer Left penniless by her father's death, Marianna Ransom must make her own way in life. Beautiful and kind, but hopelessly naive, her attempts at independence lead to disaster. At her lowest ebb, the Dowager Duchess of Devenbrook steps in. Wealthy, beautiful and kind, the Dowager claims Marianne is actually the long-lost daughter of the famed, murdered spiritualist David Holmes, whom she loved as a son. But the privileges suddenly showered on Marianne come at a cost--she is expected to present the spirit of her purported father to the grieving woman. As if that were not bad enough, ghostly visitations do seem to grace her attempts. As the anniversary of the man's death approaches, something dangerous seems to stalk the halls of Marianne's new home...and it seems to be stalking the woman she has come to love as a mother...
Read more