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Anita Shreve Books In Order

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Publication Order of Fortune's Rocks Quartet Books

Chronological Order of Fortune's Rocks Quartet Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Eden Close (1989)Description / Buy at Amazon
Strange Fits of Passion (1991)Description / Buy at Amazon
Where or When (1993)Description / Buy at Amazon
Resistance (1995)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Weight of Water (1997)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Last Time They Met (2001)Description / Buy at Amazon
All He Ever Wanted (2003)Description / Buy at Amazon
Light on Snow (2004)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Wedding in December (2005)Description / Buy at Amazon
Testimony (2008)Description / Buy at Amazon
A Change in Altitude (2009)Description / Buy at Amazon
Rescue (2010)Description / Buy at Amazon
Stella Bain / The Lives of Stella Bain (2013)Description / Buy at Amazon
The Stars Are Fire (2017)Description / Buy at Amazon

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Working Woman: A Guide to Fitness and Health (1986)Description / Buy at Amazon
Dr. Balter's Child Sense (1987)Description / Buy at Amazon
Remaking Motherhood: How Working Mothers and Shaping Our Children's Future (1987)Description / Buy at Amazon
Who's in Control: Dr. Balter's Guide to Discipline Without Combat (1988)Description / Buy at Amazon
Women Together, Women Alone (1989)Description / Buy at Amazon

About Anita Shreve:

Born October 1945 to a pilot and a homemaker, Anita Shreve was the best selling author of the critically acclaimed novel, the Pilots Wife among others. She was influenced early on in life by reading Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton whilst she was a junior in high school and also anything written by Eugene O’Neill while she as a senior. Upon graduation from Tufts University in the year 1968, she went on to become a high school teacher in and around Boston for a number of years. During her last year as a teacher she quit her job to begin writing.

Anita passed in March 2018.

After submissions of her short stories to magazines were repeatedly rejected, her early work was finally published in literary journals. Her story Past the Island, Drifting, won the prestigious O. Henry prize. However, she soon learned that despite the accolade, she could not make a living by authoring short fiction.

Shreve switched to journalism and traveled to Nairobi, Kenya where she worked for three years. Her novel, The Last Time They Met, contains snippets from her time in Kenya. On returning to America, she began working as an editor and writer for magazines in New York.

After starting a family she began to freelance for various magazines such as Cosmopolitan and Esquire. In 1989, Anita was finally successful in having her first novel, Eden Close, published with her other novels following soon after her first, averaging almost one book a year. She has also written non fiction titles including Women Together, Women Alone and Remaking Motherhood.

The Pilot’s Wife (1998)

The Pilot’s wife centers around Kathryn Lions, whose husband Jack has died in a plane crash. While her and daughter Mattie are trying to cope with this loss, Kathryn finds herself harassed by the press. While working with the airline to try and find out why the plane her husband was piloting crashed, she begins to realize that her she didn’t know her husband at all and he had been leading a double life that she new nothing about. The Pilot’s Wife was chosen to appear on Oprah’s book club leading to almost cult status.

This novel was made into an TV movie in 2002 for the CBS. Starring Campbell Scott and Christine Lahti, the movie was filmed in Ireland and was due to air a few days after September 11, 2001 for obvious reasons the film was shelved until April, 2001.

Fortune Rocks (1999)

Set in the late 19th century at a summer colony on the coast of New Hampshire, heroine 15 year old Olympia Biddeford, like a lot of girls of that age in Shreve’s earlier novels is looking for true love as well as sexual experimentation. When she meets married, 41 year old Doctor, John Haskell through her father,she finds what she is looking for. Though their affair is short lived the repercussions are devastating and ruin both of their futures. With Olympia becoming pregnant and having the baby taken from her, she is sent off to a seminary but manages to escape after three years to start a new life. Her past catches up and comes back to haunt her. Incidentally, Fortune’s Rocks which the book is named after, is actually a beach in Biddeford, Maine.

In the fall of 2002 The Weight of Water was released in theaters. The main character Jean, goes to the cost of New Hampshire to work. She is joined by Rich, her brother in law and his girlfriend, Adaline as well as her estranged husband Thomas. What follows is a muddled up, confusing and pompous cinematic experieth lesnce which is compounded by the fact that there is an attempt at two stories being told, one ancient and one modern.Touted as an erotic thriller starring Sean Penn and Elizabeth Hurley it was met wis than glowing reviews and went straight to video. This is another case of great book forget about the movie.

Shreve’s novels appeal by combining escapism with a complexity that is not usually found in romantic fiction. Her books a packed with eroticism, passion and enough adultery to keep you reading. An interest in women’s lives, families, friendships and struggles are a common theme through Anita’s novels. With her journalistic background she has an eye for detail and a literary ear she can spin a believable story. Sometimes put in the women’s fiction category, a classier form of chick-lit, because of the focus on women’s plights, her excellent language and sentimentality weaves it’s way through her books.

Her novels all have a similar theme, home and family, water, loss and grief and examples of women pushed to the edge, but each one can be explored in a totally different way. She draws you in and keeps your reading till the very last word and at the same time wanting her novels to go on and not want the end to arrive. With her latest book due out on November 12, 2013, it is already available for pre-ordering and if it is anything like her other novels she can be assured of another huge success.

Other books written by Anita are Body Surfing, All He Ever Wanted, Rescue, Testimony and The Last Time They Met among others. For a lover of the intricacies and psychology of male-female relationships these are novels that can satiate your appetite. Written with a genuine honest and sometimes dreamlike quality Anita Shreve is an author that is going to be remembered for a long time.

The author is well know for her research, reading everything she can get her hands on to make sure her books have a genuine, realistic quality about them. She spends a lot of time researching the smallest intricacies and details of her characters and the places that she writes about.
Her other passion is architecture and this is often an inspiration for her books. She lives in a 250 year old, hillside, Victorian mansion with her husband John Osborn where she would imagine the lives of the former residents. An intensely private person, Anita Shreve shares her home with her husband, whom she met when she was just 13 and has three stepchildren and two biological children.

Book Series In Order » Authors » Anita Shreve

2 Responses to “Anita Shreve”

  1. Dusty Kauffman: 2 years ago

    Is Anita Shreve still living?

    Reply
    • Graeme: 2 years ago

      No. She died in March 2018.

      Reply

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