BKMT READING GUIDES
Woman in Red
by Eileen Goudge
Hardcover : 368 pages
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Introduction
A powerful story of love and redemption, and what one woman will do to overcome the buried secrets of her past. Alice Kessler spent nine years in prison for the attempted murder of the drunk driver who killed her son. Now she's returned home to Gray's Island to reconnect with the son she left behind. Her boy, Jeremy, now a sullen teenager, is wrongly accused of rape, and mother and son are thrown together in a desperate attempt to prove his innocence. She's aided by Colin McGinty, a recovering alcoholic and 9/11 widower, also recently returned to the island in the aftermath of his grandfather's death. Colin's grandfather, a famous artist, is best known for his haunting portrait, "Woman in Red," which happens to be of Alice's grandmother.
In a tale that weaves the past with the present, we come to know the story behind the portrait, of the forbidden wartime romance between William McGinty and Eleanor Styles, and the deadly secret that bound them more tightly than even their love for each other. A secret that, more than half a century later, is about to be unburied, as Alice and Colin are drawn into a fragile romance of their own and the ghost of an enemy from long ago surfaces in the form of his grandson, the very man responsible for sending Alice to prison.
Excerpt
Nine years ago“All rise!”
A rustle of movement around her, the scrape of chairs and feet. Alice was slower to react, her sensed dulled, as if by blunt instrument, by two days of testimony: dry, reasoned discourses on skid patterns, blood-alcohol levels, and degree of vehicular damage in relation to bodily injury, all of which seemed to have as much to do with her son, with David, as a chalk outline on pavement with the living, breathing person brought to such a cruel end. ...
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Discussion Questions
From the author:1. Do you believe we’re all capable of snapping to the degree that Alice did, when she nearly took the life of Owen White? Could you imagine doing the same under those circumstances?
2. Is it possible for love to survive death? Do you think the doomed romance of Eleanor and William played a role in Alice and Colin falling in love?
3. Did Eleanor make the right choice in secretly harboring Yoshi, even though it put her and her daughter at risk?
Notes From the Author to the Bookclub
A note from author Eileen Goudge to BookMovement members: The idea for WOMAN IN RED began with an image. I saw a dog waiting on the dock as a ferry pulled into the landing---a Border Collie. There was a story there, I knew, so I let it slowly unfold in my imagination. The loyal animal is waiting in vain for his dead master. On the same ferry is the dead man’s grandson, newly returned after a long absence to the island where he summered as a child. Also on the ferry is a woman just out of prison, who is coming home to the child she left behind nine years ago. I chose the setting because my husband and I are building a home on a very similar island in the Pacific Northwest. It has an almost mystical appeal, and I think that plays into the storyline of the World War II lovers whose love transcends time. There’s also a lot of history there, going back to the early Native Americans who settled the area. What I would like readers to take away from this book is that there are, indeed, second chapters in life. Second chances at love, too. Most of all, I hope readers will find in WOMAN IN RED a book to curl up with on a rainy day (or in any kind of weather!), which not only entertains but affirms this author’s basically positive view of the world and the people in it.Book Club Recommendations
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