Amherst
In this book we get to meet Alice Dickinson (no relation to Emily Dickinson) as she travelers to Amherst to do some research for a screenplay about Austin Dickinson (Emily Dickinson brother) and Maud Todd's illicit love affair. Paralleled to this story we also get to follow Austin and Maud falling in love back in the 1900-century.
This is a book I have wanted to read for some time now and I can say that in the beginning of the book I had hoped that this would be a really wonderful passionate romantic book that I would love. It didn't turn out that way. I liked the book, but I didn't like love it. I just couldn't really get that invested in either of the love stories in the book. Both Austin and Maud and Alice and Nick's relationship just didn't work on a deep level for me. It didn't help either that I just couldn't get that invested in Emily Dickinson's poems either, a big part of the book's story. Maud was the one that edited and got the poems published after Emily's death and Alice is researching Austin's life and there are a lot of quotations of Emily's poems in this book, but I just don't really enjoy them very much.
Son in the end, this book was not as grand as I had hoped it to be, it was an enjoyable reading, especially in the beginning and I liked the ending. I found Williams Nicholson's writing style quite pleasing and wouldn't mind reading more books by him. But I will stay clear of Emily Dickinson, at least for now...
3 stars
Thank you Edelweiss for providing me with a free copy for an honest review!
5
