I didn’t want to like "The Pilot’s Wife." The plot reads like the synopsis of a Lifetime Original Movie ("On today’s program, a widow struggles with grief and suspicion after her husband dies in a plane accident. Starring [insert has-been TV actress name here]")

But I couldn’t help myself. I kept turning the pages at a steady clip. Author Anita Shreve has a way of pulling the reader inside her characters. After a while, I too started to feel grief and suspicion.

The novel opens with an attention-grabber. Kathryn Lyons opens the door in the middle of the night. On her doorstep stands a representative from the airline. He’s got bad news about her husband. Jack, the pilot of a 104-passenger plane, is presumed dead after the jet exploded in mid-air over the coast of Ireland. Kathryn is socked in the gut and so is the reader.

From there, the story spools out in standard Lifetime Movie fashion. We see Kathryn deal bravely with the loss of her husband, trying to make sense of a senseless accident. We agonize as she tries to bridge the communication gap with her rebellious teenager daughter. We gasp as we learn that Jack the pilot may not have been the model husband he was cracked up to be. We sigh as Kathryn’s breast heaves with the first stirrings of attraction for Robert Hart, the airline spokesman who delivered the bad news in the middle of the night and who later becomes her confidant. Shreve handles this last bit with amateur kid gloves—even the guy’s last name telegraphs his purpose, for goodness’ sake!

But it’s in the details where Shreve flies high:

"The images assaulted her. The feeling of Jack’s breath at the top of her spine, as though he were whispering to her bones. The sliding sensation against her mouth when he gave her a quick kiss as he went off to work."

"Carefully—monitoring herself for seismic shifts—she reached down and pulled the top sheet over her. She imagined she could smell Jack in the flannel."

"There were spaces between her thoughts now—dead air, cotton fluff."

Shreve hits every note just right and Kathryn’s voice becomes as poignant and trustworthy as anything you’re likely to read in this genre. For those who like what Shreve’s accomplished here, check out her earlier novel "The Weight of Water," which has a much more original story and an even more compelling set of characters.