Rural Wisconsin, 1909. In the bitter cold, Ralph Truitt, a successful
businessman, stands alone on a train platform waiting for the woman who
answered his newspaper advertisement for "a reliable wife." But when
Catherine Land steps off the train from Chicago, she's not the "simple,
honest woman" that Ralph is expecting. She is both complex and devious,
haunted by a terrible past and motivated by greed. Her plan is simple:
she will win this man's devotion, and then, ever so slowly, she will
poison him and leave Wisconsin a wealthy widow. What she has not counted
on, though, is that Truitt -- a passionate man with his own dark secrets
--has plans of his own for his new wife. Isolated on a remote estate and
imprisoned by relentless snow, the story of Ralph and Catherine unfolds
in unimaginable ways.
With echoes of Wuthering Heights and Rebecca, Robert Goolrick's
intoxicating debut novel delivers a classic tale of suspenseful
seduction, set in a world that seems to have gone temporarily off its
axis.