About three quarters of the way through the book I started really dislike this book. It seemed contrived, unbelievable and bordering sacrilegious. The last quarter things improved somewhat and the story was ok. To misquote Dr. Johnson worth reading perhaps but not going to read. ( )

It drug on in a few places. Overall a good story. ( )

I think it would have been better to have read [b:The Colony of Unrequited Dreams|95230|The Colony of Unrequited Dreams|Wayne Johnston|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1320470124s/95230.jpg|235533] before reading this novel. Apparently readers were introduced to the main character, Sheilagh Feilding, in that book and were left wanting to learn more about her. As a stand alone character I found her to be a character who was so difficult to like, hard to sympathize with and even harder to truly understand. She is so self-destructive and pushes away everyone who likes and/or tries to help or befriend her. She is brilliant but a physical oddity and life is cruel to her. She faces her challenges with cutting wit, using words to fight back against those who hurt her. Life never gives her a break, but she wouldn't have recognized one or taken anyways.

There is a huge mystery looming over this story and it is compelling, but I felt it just took too long to unravel. In the end it was rather anti-climatic for me. The settings are all wonderfully described, the writing is good, but I just felt that the pace was too slow for me, the pay-off just not there. ( )

Sheilagh Fielding grew up without her mother and her father insisted he wasn't really her father. As a teenager, she became pregnant and gave up her twin children. As she got older, she received letters from someone who called himself her “Provider”. He seemed to know all her secrets.

It was ok, but in my opinion, the author has much better books. I really wasn't all that interested in Sheilagh (though I was mildly curious about this “Provider”), and I really didn't like her all that much, either. Much of the book is told in diary form or letters as she thinks back on her life. Normally, that doesn't bother me much, but for some reason, I tended to skim through the letters and such more than the “regular” text of the book. ( )

Pace was very slow. ( )