A Long Fatal Love Chase | Louisa May Alcott | This Fatal Love Chase Should be a Classic (A+ Grade)

A Long Fatal Love Chase | Louisa May Alcott | The Best of Louisa May Alcott!

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A Long Fatal Love ...

	A Long Fatal Love Chase Louisa May Alcott Dell, 1997 - 368 pages average customer review:based on 59 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

"I'd gladly sell my soul to Satan for a year of freedom," cries impetuous Rosamond Vivian to her callous grandfather. Then, one stormy night, a brooding stranger appears in her remote island home, ready to take Rosamond to her word. Spellbound by the mysterious Philip Tempest, Rosamond is seduced with promises of love and freedom, then spirited away on Tempest's sumptuous yacht. But she soon finds herself trapped in a web of intrigue, cruelty, and deceit. Desperate to escape, she flees to Italy, France, and Germany, from Parisian garret to mental asylum, from convent to chateau, as Tempest stalks every step of the fiery beauty who has become his obsession.

A story of dark love and passionate obsession that was considered "too sensational" to be published in the authors lifetime, A Long Fatal Love Chase was written for magazine serialization in 1866, two years before the publication of Little Women. Buried among Louisa May Alcott's papers for more than a century, its publication is a literary landmark?a novel that is bold, timeless, and mesmerizing."

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This Fatal Love Chase Should be a Classic (A+ Grade)

A Long Fatal Love Chase has a true obsessed villian, a heroine on the run from him and a man she loves but can never have. For fans of Wuthering Heights or Jane Eyre, this book should be read and kept on your keeper shelf.
Rosamond our heroine wants adventure and to live life. She is bored nd borderlined depressed. She thinks her savior comes to her as an old friend of her grandfather's. Philip marries Rose and whisks her away. Things seem to be perfect in their marriage. Philip and Rose have an incredible love and life. Simply everything Rose ever wanted.
But then Philip's secrets come out. Rose runs away and hence the name of the book comes into play.
Where as Philip started out as the too good to be true hero of this piece, he turns into an obsessed madman. He needs Rose back to complete his life no matter the cost to her or those she encounters.
Philip is so oily and sneaky that even though he does harm the heroine, he can't see the right or wrong in the situation. He has no morals and wants to win. Rose comes across as the stereotypical nieve heroine (Hey, she did love the man afterall) but she learns fast and tries to outwit Philip anyway she can, but the results don't end the way we the readers think it will.
For suspense, drama and an adventure of wits between two passionate people, this book has everything.
This is defintely not Alcott's "Little Women". A very dark and brooding story.

Katiebabs

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The Best of Louisa May Alcott!

I read this book because of the great reviews it got at this site and because I have read her other books. Between them all, I like this book the best because of its faster pace and more active storyline. I am a big historical fiction fan, but reading a book actually written in a historical time period is different because it has the language and writing style of that time period. This book did not disappoint. Again, I am amazed by the storyline, given the era she wrote it in. It is a great book with memorable characters. Despite the title of the book, I did not expect the ending until the last few pages, and so it kept me "on the edge of my seat". I highly recommend it.

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I don't own this book

I don't own this book. I have never read this book. But I know Ms Alcott is a wonderful writer.

A Nineteenth Century Thriller

It begins on a dark and lonely island where the orphaned teenage heroine lives with her cold unfeeling grandfather. An older man, ominously named Tempest, visits. He and the supposed cabin boy of his yacht, dressed in Greek costume, provide a break in Rosamond's monotony. When her grandfather "releases" her, she willingly sails away with Mr. Tempest.

The heroine, like Jo March, is somewhat of a tomboy and in a daring eavesdrop learns an upsetting truth. Rosamond takes flight and so begins a female picaresque with cross country and oceanic travel, castles, a convent, an asylum and two appropriately chaste romances.

The Pulitzer winning Eden's Outcasts: The Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Father explains Louisa's motives in writing. While my memory has faded on the qualities of Little Women (circa 1869) it's hard to believe these came from the same pen.

The lead characters are interesting, but we cannot really know them. The virginal heroine is beautiful, honorable and strong. The villain, Tempest, in today's world would need considerably more development. While his love for Rosamond has some ennobling qualities, his bigamy, subsequent stalking and strange relationship with his son seem to be 19th century codes for unsavory qualities which we are much more open about today.

Supporting characters are interesting but also sketches. The priest has a heroic past and reads and rereads Martin Luther's renunciation of clerical celibacy. Mrs. Tempest is innocent, honorable and charitable and her son is devoted and immature.

Why was his book not published in its time? If not published as a volume, why not as a serial for which its chapters are perfectly arranged? Was it just a routine rejection for an unknown writer? Did the characters not reflect the ideals of their times? Was a war weary nation (in 1866) not perceived to be ready for a romantic thriller? Was it ahead of its time in the thriller genre as a Stephen King review of it suggests? Not sure of how to award stars for this, so I gave it 5 stars for my affection for Alcott.

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