I very much enjoyed reading this book. Ms. Clarke's use of footnotes throughout the book was an excellent way to flesh out her world of magic and its history. The characters seemed a bit flat, but the story itself was so engaging that any lack in characters could be overlooked.

The book starts off slowly, and you enter a world where there USED to be magic, but it has since disappeared, and the only 'magicians' left are men (and only men) who study magic of the past.

Although magic does finally return to the world, we are still left to wonder at its loss for it is never fully explained.

I would strongly recommend this book. It may be difficult for a book group to read due to its length, however, this should not deter an individual who has an interest in books in the fantasy genre. It is definitely well worth reading.

"The Mermaid Chair" was a dissapointment after reading "Secret Life of Bees". Whereas the characters in SLB were pulling together to help one another and were striving to do their best in a difficult world, the ones in TMC gave in to temtation very quickly and communicated with one another so poorly that it was difficult to understand their choices. They seemed to not really care about one another despite the fact that they professed caring. Their lack of respect for one another made it difficult for me, as the reader, to respect them and their choices. The mother her friends allowed the daughter to believe that the pipe she had given her father had caused his death in a fire even though they all knew otherwise. The daughter threw her relationship with her husband of many years with barely any explaination to him, the monk tossed aside his vows of celibacy to have sex with a MARRIED WOMAN... all of these choices were difficult for me, as the reader, to accept as coming from loving people. But we were expected to believe that these good people would have really done these things? Perhaps they would have, but the characters as they were portrayed were not believable in these choices.

Our group had a fascinating discussion concerning this book. It looked into the ideas of the intellectual life verses the physical (sex) life. The upper class vs the working poor. The industralization of England. All these themes were woven together into an amazing book!

A very satisfying read. The book was interesting and well researched. The ending was well crafted. I highly recommend this book.

I found the writing boring. I skipped chunks of overwritten description and found Mack's motivation thin. The dialogue was also rather contrived. Skimming is the best way to finish this book if you are in a book group that chose to read this it.

On the positive side, the author can write coherent sentences and the grammar was good.