Rhonda Riley

If you are good at suspending disbelief, if you enjoy something completely different, if you liked [b:The Time Traveler's Wife|18619684|The Time Traveler's Wife|Audrey Niffenegger|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1380660571s/18619684.jpg|2153746], you will be captivated by [b:The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope|15818218|The Enchanted Life of Adam Hope|Rhonda Riley|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1359388627s/15818218.jpg|21548311].

the relationship between Adam/Addie and Evelyn is so simple at its heart and so complicated by its nature. I was immediately swept into the possibilities for disaster. The book really came alive to me, though, when the girls were born. All the questions are amplified when you have now involved not only yourself but the lives of those you love the most in something that is unknown and inexplicable. Evelyn's self doubt and the questions she harbors make her real. Riley navigates the mine field of human experience beautifully.… (meer)

First, I have to give Rhonda Riley high praise for coming up with such an unusual and fantastical premise and grounding it so beautifully in ordinary life.

Evelyn literally pulls a naked stranger from the mud during a torrential rainstorm one night, only discovering later that this 'person' is not human. However "A" soon becomes her closest friend - and eventually her lover - a relationship divides her from her family and small town neighbors even as she outwardly seems no different.

Their lives unfold over the course of decades: raising a family, dealing with the occasional but vivid episodes of Adam's strangeness bursting into daily life. In many ways this could be a very ordinary tale of love, family, and change, but Adam's presence prevents it from ever being ordinary.

Riley is a skilled writer, creating a sense of time and place without getting weighed down in details, keeping the story moving at a gentle, quiet, but inexorable pace through the years. At the end of the book, we know Evelyn inside and out. . . but some mysteries remain veiled - and that's okay.… (meer)

Interesting premise for a book and the author did a good job working out the implications, but it reminded me too much of Time Traveler's Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. It had the same themes of a wife in love with a husband who is not who others think he is, similar motherly concern for the children who are a mix of human and otherness, etc. I enjoyed the how the characters had to deal with the concept of otherness in a different time-period - during and after WWII - and I did really enjoy Rhonda Riley's writing style. I wouldn't recommend this book wholeheartedly, but it definitely was an interesting read.… (meer)