'A Winter Marriage'
By: Kerry Hardie
(Hardcover / 400 Pages / Little, Brown & Company / ISBN: 0316076228 / $24.95)
Description:At a friend's wedding in England, widowed Hannie meets Ned Renvyle, a much older writer looking for a wife, and they agree to a pragmatic marriage he gets a companion, she gets to share his money. Settling on Ned's farm in the Irish countryside, Hannie soon discovers that enduring the snooping of the snobbish community may be too high a price to pay for financial security, particularly when her disturbed teenage son, Joss, arrives.
Verdict:'A Winter Marriage' is a tremendous contemporary relationship drama with deep moral roots that will surprise the audience not looking for subtle, multiple meaning allusions such as the title with several interpretations. Hannie is a wonderful protagonist whose morality seems lowly, but keep digging to see more to her soul. Ned and Joss enable the audience to observe their personal problems as well as providing an electron microscope level of depth into the heart of Hannie. Yet with all that emphasis on character, the story line never slows down until the final truths are bared. Kerry Hardie provides a strong novel that entertains the audience yet the basic themes never waver.
Reviewed by Sarah Hickson
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