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Jun 01, 2008

Emily rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 16, 2008

Dona rated it:

An actual line from this novel reads, "He pulled her down on top of him and surprised her with his ferocious lovemaking, the monster out of its cave once again." If that kind of writing isn't enough to deter you, perhaps the ludicrous melodrama will. Someone dies, is born, maimed or murdered on every page, except for ten extra-excruciating pages near the beginning of the book when Annie Lark lies trapped for five days under wooden beams during the New Madrid Shaking. (Yet, miraculously More...

1 comment like (5 people liked it)

Aug 03, 2009

Ariela rated it:

On February 7, 1812 the New Madrid earthquake – the largest quake ever recorded in the United States – hit Annie Lark’s Missouri house, trapping her beneath a roof beam. Unable to move the massive timber and terrified by the aftershocks, her family decides to leave the sixteen year old girl to her fate, but death is slow coming and she lingers until a French fur trapper named, Jacques Ducharme, rescues her days later. What follows is the story of Annie’s life as Jacques’ “river wife,” which Jacq More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 13, 2010

Sterlingcindysu rated it:

This is a great, multi-level story with quite a bit of history that was new to me. The only reason why I did't give it 5 stars is because many of the plot lines remained mysteries at the end and the pace really dropped to a slow plod. There's a epilogue with all the characters speaking, which I felt should have been the story, not a separate appendix. Well written, lots of details.

(copied review) The River Wife is a sweeping, panoramic story that ranges from the New Madrid earth More...

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Jun 04, 2011

Joy rated it:

I am struggling with words to describe why this book grabbed my attention so strongly. While I was still in the early pages I told my daughter that other reviewers either loved it or hated it and so far I loved it. Then I said, "I suspect it will be like 'Edgar Sawtelle'" Now I know how prophetic my words were.

This is a family saga of love, longing, joy and sadness. I would rename it "The River Man" because it is about Jacques Ducharme as seen by those around him a More...

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Feb 12, 2008

Shannon rated it:

This was a good book that started really strong and finished somewhat weaker. Even with the slow finish, the story was fascinating and I liked the multiple generation storyline. It didn't answer all of my questions, but I think ultimately I like that as well because it's nice to not have everything laid out for you.

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 20, 2012

Janice rated it:

I have really enjoyed the fiction of Jonis Agee in the past, and while I loved this book in the beginning, I got bogged down with it at times, and felt there were many unresolved plot lines in the end. I like the structure of this kind of historical fiction, with one character reading a journal and delving into the life of someone in the past, while also living out their own drama. The first story line is that of Annie Lark Ducharme, who survives the 1811 Earthquake in New Madrid Missouri afte More...

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Nov 15, 2011

Emily rated it:

I like the idea of this book as pitched on the back cover.. however, it was very slow moving and I found myself not wanting to pick it up again once I put it down. That said, however, I rarely leave a book unfinished once I start it, so finish it I did (with a lot of skimming). I was about 100 pages into it and had the thought "I think I've read this before" I'm not sure exactly what went wrong because I don't see how you can mess up a book with a river pirate, a ghost, and a search fo More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 15, 2010

Rebecca rated it:

eh. i didn't totally dislike this book, but it was one of those situations where i wasn't quite sure why i kept going ("falling angels" by tracy chevalier, anyone?)... my main complaint is that i found it to be kind of contrived. as in, i could literally feel the author trying so hard to get to a certain point that she decided the best way to do that was to hit the reader over the head with big flashing arrows that all but shouted "see? do you see? A is why B happened!! did you se More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 11, 2009

Susan rated it:

More and more, it seems that authors feel they have to tell multiple stories in one book. They also feel that jumping back and forth in time, telling a historical tale along with a contemporary one will help acheive their end.Well, guess what? It rarely works. In The River Wife, we jump from the story of a teen-aged bride back to a tale of her husband's grandfather and back again. The (historical) story of Jacques Ducharme, and the town he founded was interesting, fun fiction. That of Hedie was More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 06, 2011

Julie rated it:

I really enjoyed this book. The pace was exciting. The hardships of earlier times are rarely described with such detail. Made you feel like you were there.

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Mar 31, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

I enjoyed The River Wife quite a bit--enough to read voraciously while on vacation! I'd give it another star if it didn't spook me so much. While I wouldn't characterize it as a ghost story, it does contain some gritty tales of murder and spirits haunting the living. Others reviewing the book have said that the initial heroine Annie Lark was the most interesting character in the book's multigenerational story arc. I completely agree and was a bit disappointed when that character's story was over More...

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Nov 17, 2009

Gwendolyn rated it:

I absolutely loved this book! I wish I had written it. It is a rich and complex with a wide, sweeping scope. It is an historical, romantic, tragic, suspenseful, and dramatic tale that spans a century of one family's secrets and intrigue on a nearly mythological scale. The writing is beautiful, elegant, lush. The characters are captivating. The narrative is in the vein of Southern gothic, and is repleat with history, pirates, ghosts, the legacy of slavery, politics, natural history, and psycholog More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 22, 2010

Chana rated it:

Arkansas history (and I'm not sure how much of it actually adheres to historical truth or is just good storytelling) and 5 generations of the Ducharme family. It is a great love story of Annie Lark and Jacques Ducharme and their descendants, the development of their land, piracy on the river, slaves or not, the Civil War, betrayals and loyalties of all kinds, farming, trapping, dogs and men, women and children. And through it all Jacques Ducharme and Annie Lark. Jacques is a character to love More...

3 comments like (2 people liked it)

Sep 28, 2010

Judy rated it:

This was an unusual book about an unusual location -- along the Mississippi River in Missouri -- near the site of the 1811 New Madrid earthquake -- the largest ever recorded in the US. The story begins the day of the earthquake and goes forward into the bootlegging time of the 1930s. With people overlapping from one set of characters to another, and with some repetition of names it was a bit confusing at times. Fun to read about the French fur traders, and the river innkeepers and other very dif More...

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Mar 07, 2010

Wendy rated it:

This was an interesting story spanning several generations. At first, I thought it was the story of 2 women, Annie Lark Ducharme and Hedie Rails Ducharme. Annie lived during the Civil War era and Hedie was from the Prohibition era. When a 17 year old pregnant Hedie married the much older Clement Ducharme and came to live in the Ducharme house, she discovered Annie's journals and began reading them. At that point, the reader is introduced to Annie.

Annie's story begins with her as More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Feb 15, 2010

GoldenjoyBazyll rated it:

This is a story of women whose lives have been woven together over a number of generations. We find this out because one of the women finds some journals and begins reading over a history that leads to her present situation. The history begins in 1811 Missouri during an earthquake. Annie (one of the main characters) is a child and is trapped in her home under a beam that falls from the roof. Her family leaves her there to die because they believed that she is being punished. Along comes a F More...

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May 16, 2009

Tina rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

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Oct 26, 2007

Jia rated it:

Only a master storyteller can spin a tale so intricate that you willingly succumb to its sticky web, and Jonis Agee has accomplished this feat with her first foray into historical fiction – The River Wife. The Nebraska native is the Adele Hall Professor of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, and it was her childhood memories of summering near the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri that inspired her to create a vivid three-dimensional world of brazen, complicated, cursed and beautiful wome More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 01, 2010

Marcie rated it:

I would describe this book as a saga of generations of strong young women. It starts out with a young woman getting captured under the fallen crossbeam of her family's cabin during a flood and the family leave her there to die, in an effort to save themselves. She is rescued by a man that turns into a 'river pirate' and tells her story in a journal that is found by another young woman, generations down the family tree. It is a long book. Sometimes I skim over descriptive parts in books, but More...

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Jan 05, 2009

Becky rated it:

I had a hard time putting this book down. River Pirates, Earthquakes, intense love, mysterious treasures. It was so haunting and intriguing that I wanted to keep reading. Jonis Agee weaves a tantalizing portrait of life in the 1800s. I wished that there were more details explained about certain characters, it felt as if there were missing pieces on purpose. It made me wish the book was longer and that I could have kept reading about the Ducharme family.

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Aug 24, 2009

Julia rated it:

Depicts life in the fly over state of Missouri, starting with the New Madrid earthquake, ending in the bootlegging years of the 1930's with a bit of the fantastical and a cursed family legacy. Hard to deal with the dog fighting aspect and the fatal consquences to the family but an engrossing and engaging book. It has stayed with me over a year, some scenes of the frontier are vividly realized.

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May 05, 2011

Sarah rated it:

This reminded me of The Reliable Wife, by Robert Goolrick. I actually really liked that messed-up book, but I have four goodreads friends who have also read it, and every one of them gave it one star. The River Wife felt pretty similar--ridiculous, deeply twisted plot, characters who don't act like any real people acually act, full of overheated melodrama with a lurid, Southern gothic feel. I, apparently, just really like this sort of thing, because I found it totally spellbinding, in all its More...

1 comment like

Aug 03, 2009

Marvin rated it:

A beautifully written novel about several generations of an eccentric family that lives along the Mississippi River in Missouri. It begins during the New Madrid earthquakes in 1812 (at the very epicenter of the quakes) & ends during the Great Depression. It reminds me somewhat of Jeffrey Lent's Lost Nation, with similar characters--a sympathetic rogue & strong women--and a strong current of violence mostly just under the surface but which bursts vividly to the surface occasionally.

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Jan 23, 2011

Jacquelynn rated it:

This is a historical novel that starts with the earthquake of New Madrid, Missouri, in 1811. Its story of Jacques Durcharme and his legacy. It follows five generations of women who were either involved with or descendants of Jacques'. The women were strong, smart, and capable. They were the ones who kept Jacques' legacy. The novel has it all, mystery, romance, heartache, thrills, and the supernatural. I couldn't put it down even though some of the characters aren't nice people.

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Nov 21, 2010

Rebecca rated it:

I had higher hopes for this book based on the description, and I was a little disappointed. It was awfully depressing in parts--I enjoyed some of the characters, but there were so many that they weren't all developed that well. I thought it was fun to read about Hot Springs because I grew up there a century later. There were also some parts that were skippable, and one downright weird.

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Jul 05, 2011

Readerwriter rated it:

Maybe I'm just getting old and addled, but I found it difficult to keep the characters, generations, and relationships straight. I don't object to the "I found a dusty journal..." genre, but for heaven's sake, don't have 2 characters named Maddie! I guess I felt like all the other River Wives: no one ever quite lived up to the first character, Jacques' true love, Annie Lark.

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Apr 21, 2010

Erin rated it:

After the first river wife left the story, it lost its pizazz. Annie Lark is the most interesting character. You can actually understand why she stayed with river pirate Jacques Ducharme. But the rest of the river wives don't have compelling reasons to stay on the land along the Mississippi. I did like that the river is basically a character with a history and moods.

3 comments like

Nov 14, 2010

Crystal rated it:

This was an alright book to pass the time with. I didn't find the book to be overly great, the story was worth the read if your bored and don't have anything else to read. The people in the story was barely interesting, and they didn't hold my attention. I set the book down twice and it took me months to pick it up again each time.

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Oct 29, 2009

Danielle rated it:

This was a great read! I recommend it to anyone that likes historical fiction but also to anyone who loves a multi generational tale with earthquakes, fur trappers and Southern river pirates, sex, buried secrets, tangled relationships and dark and mysterious undertones. The multiple perspectives gets a bit confusing in places, and I was sad to not have certain characters I liked remain throughout the story. Overall a great tale of the unforgettable characters that inhabit Jacques' Landing ov More...

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