Ilze

Gave this one 3+ stars because of the amazing sense of place and descriptions of the English countryside where the story takes place.

The story itself was interesting, but somehow in the end it didn't affect me emotionally very much at all. The religious aspect was a complete wash for me, unfortunately, and Anne's "conversion" was slightly ridiculous, given all the drama that was happening around it. Anne as a person never got under my skin, and her journal entries, which I guess are supposed to illuminate her character for the reader, just seemed pretentious and over-written. Christy as a hero is wonderful, but much too perfect - too much is made of his physical beauty. For me personally it would make more sense to have Anne's attraction to him based on some aspect of his character instead of his beauty, or even better, to have his appearance be fairly ordinary. Besides his physical perfection, his character has absolutely no flaws whatsoever, he's sexy as hell, and he is the perfect Anglican vicar (earnest, dedicated, empathetic, sincere, eloquent, caring, non-judgemental etc etc), so nothing really happens to him besides falling in love with Anne. Anne's husband is just gross. Since Anne and Christy decide they love each other about halfway through the book (when they believe her husband to be dead), the rest of it is pretty much anticlimactic until the drama right at the end, and the reader is just wondering whether something is going to happen, and when they'll get married, for most of the second part of the book.