A Young Wife by Pam Lewis

I think this story has a good plot and wraps up well in the end, but I didn't like any of the characters. They were a very hard group to like. Seems everyone except the heroine, Minke, is nasty and cruel.

In the beginning, Minke is a "nurse" for an invalid, skeleton like woman addicted to morphine. The rest of the household consists of Sander, a man old enough to be her father that seems to care not a whit about his dying wife, a daughter that steals her mother's drugs and wishes her dead, and a humpback boy.

Minke marries Sander just three days after the wife dies.. she is only 15 years of age so it comes as no surprise to me really that she kept morphing from child to woman and back again until the last quarter of the novel. A boat to Argentina introduces more characters. Sadly, the most likable character dies.

In Argentina, Sander gambles everything away. Minke's best friend is a homosexual "doctor" who seems to just prescribe morphine for everything. There's a fat woman with a parrot obsession who has a multiple personality disorder it seems, nice on min, mean the next. There's sister Fenna, promiscuous and hateful, always screaming about something.

And these are the main players for the rest of the book. Minke grows into womanhood only to have her son disappear and this is where the story gets good.. but upon traveling to NY, again, most of the characters are cruel, the housekeeper, for example.

And Minke.. I liked her but could she really be that stupid??? You really let that sister of yours travel alone with your husband all the way to America? I knew what was gonna happen. Duh.

So.. I had some quibbles. However, I really like the "child abduction" bit and how it played it out. I didn't see that coming.

Laugh out loud moment: (When Minke's mother is trying to explain about sex) "Oh, the shudders, and so red in the face. The bed makes a terrible racket, too, and the doors shake... All at once he collapses like he's been shot through the heart." 

Three stars and I received two ARCs of this book, one from goodreads swap, one from the publisher. Oops. My fault.