A wonderful book. Wasn't sure I would like it at first but it drew me in and got better and better. Towards the end I couldn't put it down. ( )

After a near death experience the hero is cursed to read minds with a touch. As a result he lost his career as a doctor and became a recluse in a asylum. The heroine is brought to him with a sever head wound and when he can't read her mind he does everything in his power to save her. And he does. However, the hero is selfish, cold and calculating throughout the story. The girl looks to him as God-as her savior but he doesn't care for her as a human, but just as a test subject to get his career back. From the heroine's prospective, it's a dark, painful story for the first half of the book as she struggles to speak and understand why the hero treats her so poorly. But the second half is spent with the hero battling his own fears that turns into an unhealthy possessiveness of the heroine. It was a good book but so dark at times that I found it hard to read-disliking the hero as much as I did. ( )

did not finish reading it. boring.

A woman throws herself off the cliffs, hoping to commit suicide. She wakes up in an insane asylum, unable to remember anything about her past. I quickly grew bored with this book. I didn't particularly like Ian, and I grew really bored with Selena. I have loved Kristin Hannah's other books, but this one was a bust. ( )

from abxc 08/09 meeting; interesting book, set in 1882 on the coast of Maine. Selena tries to kill herself, but is rescued before she drowns. She's taken to a doctor's house, who houses "lunatics", including his own mother. Ian gradually heals her body, but can't do anything about the amnesia - although, with the help of the "inmates", she relearns about her world - from their perspective, which was often hilarious. The "queen" taught her how to take tea and perform a curtsy. And another answered all her questions, and retaught her the world of books and knowledge. Then her husband shows up and claims her, taking her back to the world of the Shakers, a very confining religious community for her. When her husband is shot, she takes him back to Ian's house. And there they choose to remain, with her husband, a disfigured older man, falling in love with Ian's mother. And allowing Ian and Selena to continue their love. ( )