I thought perhaps my displeasure with this book was due to the heat wave in our area..I felt dazed and confused every time I picked it up. I simply could not find a single positive point on which to focus. None of the characters had any attraction nor did the author stay with them long enough to develop any. The long list of characters was mind boggling and would have been interesting if the author had told us a bit about them. The entire plot, theme and story line was not only confusing but difficult to follow and got completely lost. There were no intriguing or colorful descriptions of anything either. This book was simply dull, dull, dull. I couldn't finish it and didn't care to try. Apparently neither did anyone else in my entire book club. This was a shock, as this is a group of avid readers some of whom soldier through most everything, and then some.