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Editorial Review Product Description
Born to a life of wealth and privilege in turn-of-the-century Rhode Island, Emma Tremayne's life is all mapped out for her--including her engagement to the town's most eligible bachelor. Emma's sheltered world is shattered, however, when she discovers the horrifying working conditions in her fiance's textile mill. And when she encounters Shay McKenna, a brave Irish revolutionary, she learns what it will take to defy society's conventions, and experience a love she never thought possible.Amazon.com Review
With skill and beauty, Penelope Williamson conveys the powerand poignancy of many kinds of love in this moving story of anall-consuming, forbidden passion between a high-society beauty fromlate-19th-century Rhode Island and the impoverished Irishrevolutionary who is married to her new friend. Emma Tremayne, boundby duty in a luxurious, highly restricted world, unconsciously yearnsfor something more. Gradually she reaches out to a poor Irish woman, apregnant millworker with a husband and two children, who is dying ofconsumption. In Bria McKenna, Emma finds a soul-deep friend whoquietly transforms her, opening her eyes to new joys andpossibilities.Observing Bria's rock-solid love for her husband Shay,Emma begins to find within her own heart a previously unknown capacityfor passion and devotion. Yet Emma dares not reveal to Bria thatshe's fallen in love with Shay. Williamson captures this time andplace, and these complex relationships, in vividly realized, highlyvisual scenes, creating a memorable novel of real and enduringcharacters, with language whose elegiac tone captures the fleetingbeauty of life. --Ellen Edwards ... Read more Customer Reviews (44) 
Had Potential but just Okay...
I ordered this book after many months of recommendations, as well as reading many positive reviews.There is no doubt that Ms. Williamson has talent.I found her lead characters compelling and entertaining.I was however disappointed in the print I received from amazon that cost me $20.00 and was amatuerish.It was faded in the left margin making it difficult to read as well as pages out of order.Very frustrating.As far as the meat inside the book, I thought there were many holes in the story and found alot of plot points unbelievable and inaccurate which I found distracting.I found the flow choppy at times which prevented me from becoming as emotionally involved as I may have.I also found most of the supporting characters one dimentional and formulaic.Ms. Williams seems to forget about them until they are needed to forward a plot point.I would give Ms. Williamson another try but without the higher expectations.
I started reading this book while sitting in line to pick up my kids...
While sitting in the car, waiting in line to pick up my school kids, I started Chapter 1. The following day I read Chapter 2. The third day I read one more. The fourth day I couldn't put the book down until I looked at the clock in shock and it read 2:30 a.m. I went to sleep that night and dreamt up ending plot possibilities. It's funny I can't remember any of my plot "ideas" (dream sequences) but Ms. Williamson proved to have the remaining story beautifully plotted.
I appreciated her history lesson of the struggle of the Irish poor in early America. When I read about similar historical events in college courses neither the professor nor the tomes helped me "feel" the facts. While reading "The Passions of Emma" I felt every emotion! My heart broke for the mill workers life. Emma's heart broke as well learning the working conditions of the Irish: Mill workers labored 12 hour days, with one 1/2 day off a month. The children were "encouraged" to work (for a pittance) which provided their parents a reduction in rent (otherwise too costly). The building Emma insisted she tour had nowindows providing little light to work by and the fluff floating thick in the air choked her. The lack of windows made the heat stifling and the noise from the machines overpowering.
It wasn't only the American "Great Folk" who were ghastly to the Irish.The "American serfdom" of the Irish in the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is described similarly within England (and their working poor) in the novel, "North and South" by Elizabeth Gaskell (A classic romance/historical). I am not a union advocate but these stories make it clear why workers needed to unionize during a critical time in world history. I do not wish to suggest Ms. Williamson was on a witch hunt of the rich, powerful families of America. She presented pictures of mills at that time in history. Machines and industry were a new force that needed figuring out. The portrayal of Geoffrey as a somewhat concerned employer demonstrated the author's concern toward stereotyping. The portrayal of the "Great Folk" especially through Bethel, Emma's mother, was equally enlightening into the dynamics of the character development of Emma, Stu, Maddie, Geoffrey and Willie and"the moneyed families". Thank you Ms. Williamson for a beautifully written story. I intend to read all your books.
Story is good, KINDLE HAS RUINED FORMAT though
Just a warning to anyone buying this on Kindle, the chapters are OUT OF ORDER!It is horrible, for about five or six chapters the story would be in line and then suddenly you'd jump from chapter six to chapter fourteen...and it isn't easy to figure out where to pick up because some (but not all) of the chapters are mislabeled!HORRIBLE experience with Kindle but a good enough story that I was willing to sort through the hodge-podge of chapters looking for the right ones.
Classic writing!
This is the first time I am writing a book review, so you can imagine that this book left quite an impression on me.While I would never qualify myself as being an authentic book critic, I have been a high school English teacher for over fifteen years; thus I have read many, many books.I have read hundreds of classics over the years, but I hate to admit that I also indulge in the guilty pleasure of historical romance. I do so enjoy the places where these books can take me, and I make sure to read only those books that have happy endings.(Years of Shakespearean and Homeric tragedy have left me wanting the traditional "happy ending.") However, many times these romances are just
"fluff," and that's okay as I need something mindless once in a while.Sometimes, though, I come across an author or book that I think could rank up there with some of the classics I've read (Austen, Bronte, Hardy),
but I know the genre just doesn't fit in with those powerhouse writers.
This book touched me in a way that I haven't been touched by a book in years. It was beautifully written, and the characters are still haunting me even though I finished the book a week ago.It is such wonderful love story that encompasses all the various types of love one can feel- friendship, male/female, maternal, paternal, patriotic, sexual.I was drawn in from the first chapter.It also gave a very vivid image of the time period, explicitly presenting the horror of the plight of the poverty-stricken Irish in turn of the century New England.
Many of the other reviewers felt that the ending was lacking, but I think Williamson meant to leave the reader wanting more, but leaving it to us to manufacture the rest of the story in our own minds.I do believe that Shay truly loved Emma; maybe that is just my romantic soul speaking, but I don't think the book would have ended as it did had he not.He told her he loved, and he was too honest and straight-forward a character to give her empty words.Did he love her as much as much as he loved Bria?
I don't know that one can ever have that "first true love" feeling a second time.But I do believe he loved her as strongly.
You must read this book.If I could bring it into one of my classes I would, but the sexual content (though tastefully done) would certainly preclude that, nor would I ever recommend it to my students for that reason.But for us adult women, this book is highly emotive and beyond satisfying.
Despite flaws, deserves 5 stars; exceptional romantic lit
Overview: The Passions of Emma is not only Penelope Williamson's most evocatively-written and emotionally-nuanced work, it is one of the best Romance novels I've ever read. It is an all-around "great read" that would satisfy a wide general or literary readership.
Plot: In 1890s Rhode Island, a young heiress struggles to "find" and express herself in the repressive high-society of her birth. She embarks on a moving friendship with a tubercular Irish immigrant woman, and falls in love with a dirt-poor Irishman.
Let's get the negatives out of the way (and do note that there are several. They simply do not eclipse the overall quality of the novel).
***SEMI-SPOILERS ahead!******
Negatives:
1. Several coincidental or overwrought plot devices: It's true that women were often committed to asylums for deplorable reasons, but adding this PLUS the sleigh accident PLUS the suicide PLUS the fire PLUS the ghosts/clairvoyance, etc. seemed like overkill. On the other hand, many people's lives really are this fraught, so judge for yourself. (The frequent equation of rain with the characters' miseries needed work, though).
2. A minor character portrayed throughout the book as sympathetic later commits a very unsympathetic act. I won't reveal how the character knew our protagonist, but suffice it to say it was character category often revealed as a spiteful meddler in numerous works of fiction.
3. A bit of stereotyping: surely not EVERY upper-crust character was as racist and unfeeling as those in the book; perhaps there were at least one or two poor Irish immigrants who didn't come from Gaelic-speaking areas, or who weren't saucy and pugnacious?
4. Loose ends: the Madeline/Stu storyline is left up in the air, though I disagree with other reviewers that the mother's storyline was abandoned. (In fact, the mother's was quite poignantly ended--see the scone-eating scene).
5. BIGGEST NEGATIVE: Because it is being marketed in the Romance genre, this book has a small number of conventions to fulfill: namely, a focus on a couple's courtship, and an ending with the promise of long-term happiness for their union.Given that a moving love relationship is the very purpose of this genre, I'd say the book fails somewhat in delivering an effective love story. Emma's epiphany that she loves the male protagonist is abrupt and fairly unsubstantiated given their past encounters. From there on out, the relationship is a mystery, hurtling into a sexual affair with very little indication from the hero that he has (a) gotten over the recent death of his beloved wife, and (b) that he strongly desires Emma, much less loves her.
*** In short, the romance is believable in terms of "real life" (so many widowed spouses have jumped into love on the rebound; so many relationships where one partner's love is stronger than the other's). But in terms of Romance genre expectations? No, the relationship falls short in this capacity. I won't reduce the 5-star rating, though, because I recognize that the novel will have a broader appeal outside of the genre, and, as such, should not be appraised solely in generic terms.
Neutrals:
1. The protagonist Emma makes decisions in the name of friendship, love, and self-discovery that are not in the best interests of her mother, her sister, her family name, her fiancé. Make of this what you will. In my opinion, this made for a more nuanced and realistic character: would you take seriously a character who experiences a blossoming self-discovery yet never once falters in her self-sacrificial obligations to friends, family and society? Returning again to genre, a character whose eyes are opened to the brutalities of her "gilded age" society, and who tastes love and liberty, only to return at last to her social tethers and confinements does not, IMO, satisfy the "promise of happiness" ending that characterizes the Romance genre. That ending could belong in a number of genres or in "mainstream"-marketed fiction, but not in Romance.
Now, for the Positives:
1. Well-written. This book has some of the deftest and most evocative writing I have read in genre fiction. Although some of the scenarios are dramatic tear-jerkers, the writing itself is never florid or convoluted; rather, it has a natural and pleasing rhythm. Above all, it is deceptively simple--you will read well into the novel before you realize the author's style has quietly impressed you.
2. Skillful use of dialogue and regional accents. Yes, yes, the notorious "writer's brogue" is out in full force for the Irish characters. But, it is still one of the better depictions of brogue that I have read. (If you have read bad brogue or Scots before, believe me: you know it, and have cringed). Dialogue is almost always believable and wonderfully indicative of character.
3. Superb portrait of female friendship, something sadly lacking in much of print fiction and in almost all of modern cinema and television. The relationship between Bria and Emma is truly moving, far more so than the romance between Emma and the hero. Several notable passages describe the entwining of the women's hands across the table, the feeding of berries to one another, the recognition of each other as "mirrors" of one another, and the natural discomfort as class barriers come tumbling down.
4. Lovely depiction of an "everyday" kind of romantic love--that between Bria and her husband. Like many relationships of the time, it began out of social necessity but blossomed into something powerful and affecting. Sadly, this makes Emma's own romance pale in comparison.
5. Painfully genuine and heartfelt exploration of one woman's psyche, of her journey into self-awareness and her struggle to discover her place in the world. I especially recommend this book to men who have claimed trouble "understanding" women's particular struggles, and to male writers hoping to improve characterization of their female protagonists. In the end, it's a story of self-discovery, poignant for males or females, for the Emmas and the Brias of the world.
"She thought about how these stone walls, these white birches, had borne witness to the whole of her life....She felt as if she'd always been holding herself back, saving it, and she had a terrible fear she would end up saving it forever. That she would die with whole parts of herself unused." (pg, 51, Warner 1997).
6. A happy ending made happy because of the woman's choices and the woman's "saving the day." A socialite's fall from the comfort and power of wealth to become the wife of a dirt-poor Irish laborer with three children from a previous marriage--does this sound like a happily ever after, or even a woman-affirming ending? It can be when it is the heroine's resources and strength that will lift out of poverty this well-deserving family that has suffered so much. Yes, it is money bequeathed to her from other men (father's lineage), but her use of it to educate and tend another woman's children is a more subversive use of her fortune than pooling it with a duke's or heir's great wealth (the stuff of many historical romances). And, one is left with the feeling that "the new Emma" can find it in herself to move on from her relationship, if it proves unfulfilling.
Miscellaneous notes: Limited and rather cursory descriptions of sensuality; appropriate and character-illuminating use of profanity; disturbing scenes of patient abuse in a mental asylum. Sub-plots involving homosexuality, physical disability, suicide, body image/self-esteem, rape and sexual exploitation, and the political troubles of 19th century Ireland.
Highly Recommended to: Lovers of nuanced "self-discovery" novels; lovers of books with strong women characters; lovers of "second-chance" love stories; readers who love to see characters triumphing over society's hypocrisy; those fond of the works of Edith Wharton, Elizabeth Gaskell, and Kate Chopin (and, though the subject matter differs, Willa Cather). Above all, those interested in a solidly good read that stirs the emotions, to boot.
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Interesting premise, but the romance aspect was way too rushed