The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner

The Nature of Fragile Things by Susan Meissner ISBN-13: 9780451492180 Paperback: 384 pages Publisher: Berkley Books Released: February 2nd 2021

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description from Goodreads:
April 18, 1906: A massive earthquake rocks San Francisco just before daybreak, igniting a devouring inferno. Lives are lost, lives are shattered, but some rise from the ashes forever changed.

Sophie Whalen is a young Irish immigrant so desperate to get out of a New York tenement that she answers a mail-order bride ad and agrees to marry a man she knows nothing about. San Francisco widower Martin Hocking proves to be as aloof as he is mesmerizingly handsome. Sophie quickly develops deep affection for Kat, Martin's silent five-year-old daughter, but Martin's odd behavior leaves her with the uneasy feeling that something about her newfound situation isn't right.

Then one early-spring evening, a stranger at the door sets in motion a transforming chain of events. Sophie discovers hidden ties to two other women. The first, pretty and pregnant, is standing on her doorstep. The second is hundreds of miles away in the American Southwest, grieving the loss of everything she once loved.

The fates of these three women intertwine on the eve of the devastating earthquake, thrusting them onto a perilous journey that will test their resiliency and resolve and, ultimately, their belief that love can overcome fear.


My Review:
The Nature of Fragile Things is that they break. This book is women's fiction set in 1906 in San Francisco. The main character was Sophie, who already had survived a hard past and so didn't question too carefully what her new husband was up to when things didn't quite add up. After all, he's given her a pleasant home, he doesn't abuse her, and she loves his young child. But, on the eve of the massive earthquake, she's forced to face that her husband has wronged many people and that her comfortable life must change.

The characters were likable, complex, well-developed, and reacted realistically to events. The historical details about the time period and about the earthquake were woven into the story and brought events vividly alive in my imagination. The point of the story seemed to be that evil people don't know how to love but good people do know how to love and are willing to do the right thing even when it's hard. The story was morally murky in that Sophie committed a crime, but she's not held accountable for it because it's done to stop someone who's evil.

There was married sex, but the scenes were very brief and only vaguely described. There were a couple uses of bad language. While the story was well-written, interesting, and I always understood why the characters were doing what they were doing, the story felt rather bleak and not really uplifting. The wronged women's actions were more about protecting themselves than truly stopping evil. I prefer stories were evil is clearly defeated rather than were questionable actions taken to survive against evil are justified.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.