The Seduction of Water (Ballantine Reader's Circle)

by Carol Goodman

Iris Greenfeder, ABD (All But Dissertation), feels the “buts” are taking over her life: all but published, all but a professor, all but married. Yet the sudden impulse to write a story about her mother, Katherine Morrissey, leads to a shot at literary success. The piece recounts an eerie Irish fairy tale her mother used to tell her at bedtime—and nestled inside it is the sad story of her death. It captures the attention of her mother’s former literary agent, who is convinced that Katherine wrote one final manuscript before her strange, untimely end in a fire thirty years ago. So Iris goes back to the remote Hotel Equinox in the Catskills, the place where she grew up, to write her mother’s biography and search for the missing manuscript—and there she unravels a haunting mystery, one that holds more secrets than she ever expected. . . .

• ISBN10: 0345450914
• ISBN13: 9780345450913
• Publish Date: 30 December 2003 (first published 1 January 2003)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Ballantine Books Inc.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 400
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780345450913

Reviews

[empressbrooke]

At first I was disappointed that this book wasn't as eerie and atmospheric as Goodman's [b: The Lake of Dead Languages|120274|The Lake of Dead Languages|Carol Goodman|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1320554718s/120274.jpg|3159707], which was a powerful mystery that's stayed with me for years. However, The Seduction of Water holds its own and is completely engrossing; by the time I had finished, I was a little confused about the idea that I was done with the characters and didn't get to keep following them.

Lake of Dead Languages and Seduction of Water share the element of discovering hidden parts of the past - Seduction is about the main character's search for her dead mother's missing manuscript and untangling the secrets that surround her mother's death. Goodman makes everything come alive, from the characters to the hotel that the main character grew up in and now works at. I look forward to reading the rest of her books, which are currently sitting in my Borrowed From Library pile.