Short takes

Reviewed by MARGIE THOMSON

Anita Shreve: All He Ever Wanted

A fire in a New Hampshire hotel throws Nicholas van Tassel and Etna Bliss together. For him, it's a painful, obsessive love at first glance; for her, a reluctant opportunism tempered with pity. Set early last century, this is a bitter, poignant story of unequal love and two very different kinds of servitude and betrayal between people who each arouse in the reader quite contradictory feelings of sympathy and distaste. Nicholas is the narrator, but we easily read between the lines of his version of the story into the psychology and motivation of his beloved Etna. As love distorts, the story also evolves into a chilling portrait of the tensions of academic ambition and small-town life. This is a most elegant novel that continues to play in the mind well after the curtain falls.

Time Warner, $34.95

* * *

Rosie Thomas: If My Father Loved Me

An acute rendering of a complex emotional issue: how to deal with the death of a parent when that parent has died before you could make peace with them. Sadie looks back over her childhood with the neglectful Ted, a perfumier with an endless parade of girlfriends. Years of unaddressed anger must work their way to the surface, at the same time as Sadie is having problems with her own son, the incommunicative Jack. Sadie is a believable character, a solo mum doing the best she can to juggle friendships, work, children - and possibly a new lover. An enjoyable domestic saga with a twist at the end, easily read, easily forgotten afterwards.

William Heinemann, $34.95

* * *

Janet Gleeson: The Serpent in the Garden

Renowned portrait-painter Joshua Pope visits a country estate to paint a wedding portrait of avid horticulturalists Herbert Bentnick and his fiancee, Sabine Mercier. But when a body appears among the pineapple plants, Pope becomes involved in an intriguing mystery that begins to threaten his own career. A well set-up puzzle, but too slow-moving for me. Gleeson, noted as a historical writer, calls up so much technical detail the story meanders and gets all but lost in those pineapple groves.

Bantam, $45

* * *

Jodi Picoult: Second Glance

Picoult ventures into the supernatural in this ghost mystery that fans seem agreed is her best novel yet. She weaves a number of stories through the pages, centred around the sale of land which is also claimed by local Indians as an old burial ground. A unsolved murder from 70 years ago, as well as the reverberations of a 1930s eugenics project, a man who despite several suicide attempts cannot die, a boy with an allergy to the sun, lost love and uncanny resemblances ... Well-drawn, unusual characters and a twisting, turning plot add up to a good read.

Allen & Unwin, $35