Although the plot is interesting and the characters are eccentric, the writing style of this author left me bored, bored, bored. The theme was constantly repeated throughout the book and left me feeling very frustrated. There was one twist in the middle that grabbed my attention but in the end it was all very predictable. The only reason I got through this book was because it was selected for our reading club. We have 7 members and everyone felt the same way. Very disappointing.

I had high hopes for this novel; a story of a woman who answers a personal add to marry a rich man. Not for love, but for companionship. Too bad she has a secret lover and a plan. A plan to poison the rich fool and take his money back to her lover. But can she pull it off?

I personally didn't feel for the characters and by the time I got to the end, it was like "So what? That's it?"

I've read better tales of deception and murder and wont be recommending this novel.

Great characters, engaging story. Warning though: its pretty bleak. Its starts out bleak, gets more bleak, there's a plot twist that makes it depressing, and then the happy ending makes you wanna cry.

While I liked this book overall, as a good story, I found it ultimately to be a story of despair. You get a real sense of the long,harsh Wisconsin winters, the hard life of the factory workers, and the futility of the empty life of the pleasure seekers.
A young woman answers an ad to be the mail-order bride of a wealthy man. She is not who she pretends to be. She was a courtesan. She arrives with plans to slowly poison him with arsenic and inherit his fortune. To her surprise, she begins to fall in love with him, and begins to wonder if she can carry out her plans.
There is a surprise halfway through, which influences her plans and makes you feel her anguish. It's a sad commentary on life lived without purpose, in spite of a few simple, happy moments.

I chose this book to do for my eighth grade book report. If you've read the book it was a little embarrassing reading my project out to the entire class because of its strong use of sexual behaviors. Still, I found this book to be an empowering and a controversial example of how an "innocent" woman can grow up and turn into this sort of person. The writing flowed beautifully and I highly recommend it.
PS. Don't judge my review by my age (13) I am highly mature for the state I grew up in and the surroundings I live in today!

I'll admit that i picked up this book because the cover grabbed my attention...which just goes to show that it holds true that you can't judge a book by its cover. For something recommended by Heather Reisman I was extremely disappointed, the writing was very repetitive with very little action or driving force and the characters were not likeable or relateable. A very unsatisfying story

This book was a bit wordy and the style of writing was unique but I throughly enjoyed the story.

since I've had a book grab me and hold me till the last page. I honestly couldn't put it down. The writing was evocative and the descriptions made you feel that you were there and part of this gripping story. I highly recommend this book but just have another one ready to go because you won't be reading it for a long time!

It's 1907 and Catherine Land, a whore answers an ad in the ppr of a wealthy man's request for a 'reliable wife". She's accepted and goes to Wisconsin to start a life fresh with Mr. Ralph Truitt.
Unbesknowst to him, she plans on slowly posioning him with arsenic to claim his riches with his son who was fathered by another man his wife betrayed him with a long time ago. a slow read, lots of wanton explicit sex and a twisted ending to satisfy you

Not at all what I was expecting. I'd picked up the book to read while on vacation and found myself pulled into a story raw, gritty.. not at all like the love story I was hoping for. Brings a whole new meaning to 'in sickness and in health."

Not award winning, but would have been great for a book club - there's a lot here worth talking about.

Promised to be a good read, but turned out to be a poorly written, shallow romance.
Expected more from a book recommended by Heather Reisman.

Reason for Reading: The description of the book intrigued me: the time period, the small town, gothic atmosphere and I always take a second look at "mail order bride" stories from the 19th cent. and this was close enough.

Comments: Ralph Truitt, 54, is a wealthy owner of the manufacturing business that employs most of the population of a small town in Midwestern Wisconsin. A widower of twenty years he places an Ad for "a reliable wife" and after a certain amount of correspondence a ticket is sent and Catherine arrives to become his wife. Both parties have deep dark secrets and alternative reasons for embarking on this marriage of convenience. Mr. Truitt soon comes clean and spills his soul to Catherine, before the wedding, telling the tale of his past and his ultimate purpose for her to perform as his wife. Catherine, on the otherhand, keeps her own past a carefully hidden secret and goes to great lengths not to have her devious intentions become known.

This is a hard review for me to write because as I was reading the book I started off not liking it, then I would be ok with it, then I did not like it and back and forth until the ending chapters which were tense and hard to put down. Whether I liked it or not, the plot kept me reading and at no point after "Part One" did I think of putting the book down.

"Part One" had me thinking I'd made a big mistake with this book and that it was just going to be romantic drivel. I do not read pure romance books and found myself rolling my eyes and hoping something more than two people hating each other, having constant conflict, then secretly falling in love and finally admitting they love each other was going to happen. Fortunately, that was not this book and much more did happen.

The plot is intriguing; it goes places one doesn't expect. Both Catherine and Ralph are very complex characters though their personalities and actions did not leave me caring much about either of them. I had no concern as to whether either of them had a happy ending though I was intrigued as to what happened to them, if that makes sense. The greatest theme running through the book is that of Ralph who has confessed and is now accepting and living his life as penance for his past life of lust, violence and lack of family commitment. Catherine's life is similar, though she is at a different stage.

One thing that bothered me was the s*x. There was lots of it. Not graphic, but what I would call descriptive and it really wasn't that, that bothered me but the constant presence of it. If the main characters were not having s*x, they were thinking about past encounters or fantasizing about present encounters and future encounters. When not doing any of those they would imagine the s*x lives of the people they passed on the street or drive by houses and wonder what s*x took place within those buildings. Not that this was a past time they did together, it was simply something within each of them that they naturally thought about all the time when they were alone. It was really overkill for me.

As I've said, even though there are certain parts of the book that I did not like or that annoyed me, the plot is intriguing and meaningful. Characters are not likeable but are compelling. I'm glad to have read it. I would also most likely read another book by the author if the subject matter interested me. He does recommend a photographic book to read in his note at the end which I have put in an ILL request for which he based his atmosphere on in this book: the long, seemingly non-ending Wisconsin winters that seemed to drive people at the end of the nineteenth century to a certain kind of madness.

This book was very interesting a story about deceit, lies, love and lust. I really liked the character stories Ralph Truitt, Catherine Land and Antonio Truitt. I loved how Catherine starts the story with a plan and knowing exactly what and how she's going to accomplish her goals but in the end her heart leads her in a different direction and she ends up with both love and money two things she never thought she would have together. Loved the book only thing i would change if anything i would have gave it an extra chapter maybe ....

How do you find a wife in 1907 in Wisconsin? You advertise, or Ralph does. Catherine Land responds. After several months of correspondance, Ralph proposes, and Catherine accepts, moving to Wisconsin.
The first half of this book is sexy: both Catherine and Ralph are filled with longing, and no way to express it. It builds, the pressure rising, and I was anxious for the second half of the book to see the conclusion.
Sadly, the second half was a let down. The plot turned to betrayls, and became predictable.
Another reviewer made comparisons to Angelina Jolie movie Original Sin, and the comparisions are apt: good idea, second half let down.

I was looking forward to a good read since the story line sounded intriguing - however, the plot was predictable and the characters somewhat lacking.
When it came to the author's references about sex and longing it became it bit much - so repetitive - the same theme repeated over and over again - the male protaginast is sex starved - we get it, already!
Not a book I'd recommend.

I was one of those that was disappointed. I found the sexual references gratuitous and they read more of the author's own fantasies than having any bearing on character development. Also I found the plot predictable and the novel slow paced. The book is readable, in that I read it to the end, but not a "great" read.

I thoroughly enjoyed the plot and the writing style of this book. A book with some literacy and style. I am a little disappointed in some of the gratuitous language but that is a small point and probably a personal perspective... The story builds wells and then slows a bit in the middle as background and sub plot(s) are developed then speeds again through to a quite satisfying end. This is a book that needs you to do a little thinking and while some may say they can predict the ending... I didn't think so.

One of the most unpredicatble intertwinings of seemingly seperate lives I've read in a long time. To think that people who appear to be strangers can find each other at any time, is quite remarkable, but at the turn of the last century...

I'm a nut for historical drama, anyway, but that backdrop makes this one fascinating beyond what I had originally expected.

Wonderful!

Having read the reviews, I thought I would like this book, but I must admit that I wanted more story and less psychology. The incredibly slow pace gives the reader too much time to correctly predict the outcome...there are no surprises, and the cast of characters isn't interesting enough to make it worthwhile. Quite a disappointment.

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick is written in third person with the narrator going into the heads of three main characters: Ralph Truitt, Catherine Land, and Antonio Truitt. The cover attracted me most to pick up this novel, but I was not disappointed. There is a proper ending leaving the reading certain of the characters' positions.

At first the narrative seems somewhat uninteresting, but as the author reveals more about the characters, the story becomes quite engaging that I had to force myself to put the book away. The prose is beautiful. I believe women eighteen and older will definitely enjoy this tale of romance.


Ralph Truitt is a rich man in his forties, living in Wisconsin in 1907. His heart broke twenty years prior when he caught his wife, Emilia, cheating on him. Incapable of looking at Antonio's resemblance to his mother, Emilia, Ralph beat his son unnecessarily until Antonio runs away. Unable to bear his lonely life any longer and regretting the terrible deeds he did to his son, Ralph advertises for 'a reliable wife.' Catherine Land answers the ad, claiming that she is 'a simple honest woman,' and soon she comes to Wisconsin in the wintertime to marry Ralph.

Discover the clandestine pasts of Ralph and Catherine. Without any love for Ralph and always lying about her own identity, what intentions does Catherine have? Will Antonio ever forgive his father for ruining his childhood? Will Catherine ever truly love Ralph?

4/5