Sanctuary by Edith Wharton

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Dammit, I just looked at the blog and this is two days late! I thought I was scheduled for the 15th, not the 13th - really sorry!

Um. The nicest thing I can say about Sanctuary is that I finished it. It's 94 pages long, and it really kind of dragged.

I understand it's an early work of Wharton's and I haven't read anything else by her, so I can't compare, but Sanctuary - to me - read like a tired, dry little morality tale. And it IS a morality tale, but I felt like I was eating sand. Which could have been my mood, or the fact I nearly fell asleep while I was tring to finish it, or any one of a dozen things.

Kate Orme is about to get married when her husband-to-be lets her in on a family secret that is set to inform the rest of Kate's life.

She chooses to marry Denis Petyon anyway, and the story picks up in the future - Denis having passed away several years ago, leaving Kate to raise their son, Dick.

A rising architect, Dick finds himself with a moral dilemma after the death of a friend and colleague.

There's a lot going on for such a short piece, but I nearly found myself skimming parts of it that felt more like exposition than anything. The best thing in Sanctuary is Clement Verney - a young woman of unashamed ambition, who breathes life into the pages and the characters.

4/10 Why am I here?