But now and then you do not have all the control of your feelings
that you should have--and then thoughts and feelings
surge up in you like--like an angry tide.
And it is hard, sometimes it is hard to control the tide.”


This installment of the Poldark saga is, like all the others, stellar writing and storytelling. You have lived with these characters so long by this stage that you know them by heart, and yet there is always something new and exciting and vibrant and alive about them.

There is heartbreak and redemption and confusion and sorrow to be found within these pages, and much that makes you reflect on what it means to just be human. The name is so appropriate, for it is the uncontrolled feelings of each of these people that brings them to their greatest impasses. There is stubbornness and tenacity and failure to release the past and the redemption that is possible when you finally do.

One theme that runs through the series, and that we see more and more clearly as the books progress, is that the things we do matter. They influence not only our lives, but those of others, perhaps in ways we cannot ever imagine they will. One moment of passion, of thoughtlessness, of lust for revenge, can lead to consequences that haunt us endlessly and reverberate even after our deaths...in the lives of our greatest loves and our children.

I have not had a moment of regret in taking on this series. Or, if I have, it is that I cannot just sit and read it end to end without life interrupting. This is book seven of twelve, so there is a lot more of Ross Poldark’s life to come, but I am already sure that when I close on the last page of the last book, my heart is going to scream at me to start all over again.


( )

The series is becoming melodramatic but I'm still enjoying it. Like another reviewer, I'm getting tired of problems between Demelza and Ross, mostly because sometimes I don't quite get what the problem is. Another problem with this one--SPOILER SPOILER SPOILER--what exactly is
Elizabeth's illness? Something to do with the potion that she took, and something to do with prisoners of war, but it's not clear at all. ( )

HOLY CRAP BOMBSHELL.

This might have been my favorite to date. So many satisfying or surprising storylines. I think I love these books a lot right now because no one in them is ever really happy, or if they are, they won't be soon. It's comforting. ( )

Warning: This review contains spoilers

****

This book contains a great deal of turbulent emotion that rages like the gale toward the end. Ross and Demelza hope to have a good time in London, but Demelza encounters a slimeball named Monk Adderly, who pays her attentions that are depressingly relevant to the 21st century (right down to the idea of Demelza feeling she needs to placate him in order to fit in to society and to prevent anything worse from happening). This leads to a duel and some troublesome fallout. The nasty “reverend” Osborne Whitworth finally gets his just deserts, leaving Morwenna and Drake to potentially get back together. But after her experience with Osborne, Morwenna is reluctant to marry again…And the turmoil in the Warleggan clan is far too much to go into here. Suffice it to say that several jaws were dropped around these parts.

In an interesting bit of intertextuality, I read this shortly after reading Peter Ackroyd’s Revolution, which covers English history from the mid-1600s to 1815, and some of the issues raised in Parliament, as well as some of the characters, were familiar from those pages.

Overall I enjoyed this book very much. It could be argued that the storylines are a bit soapy, and I would assert that Osborne’s extracurricular activities did not need to be described in any detail whatsoever, but the pages flew by. Will have to find out soon who this stranger from the sea is. ( )

It took me a year to find this book in a used bookstore. I wondered if this book would have the same feel as the previous six. I needn't have worried.

I pick up right where I left off. The series of novels read like a soap opera and Graham's characters grow wonderfully under his pen. Some blossom and others are throttled emotionally. No spoilers but issues in the previous novel are resolved while other issues come to the front.

A very satisfying read ( )