The Train Home

With The Train Home, Susan Richards Shreve departs from the sweep of her previous novel, the acclaimed Daughters of the New World, to tell a poignant story of love, unlikely and triumphant. Two people meet by chance on a Washington subway. Annie Blakemore, an aspiring opera singer with a romantic imagination, two delightful children, and a husband made bitter and abusive by an automobile accident, becomes obsessed with a handsome priest she sees on the train. Knowing that her pursuit of a stranger is irrational, but intuiting that there is something right about it too, Annie follows him, little realizing that he is not what he seems. For Will Huston is not a priest at all, but an Irish actor in disguise, out to find and punish the man responsible for his young brother’s death. As their paths cross, we begin to realize that, impossible as it may seem, their futures lie in each other. The Train Home is a novel that celebrates the magic inherent in the brief encounter and, if the disguises fall away, the possibility for love in a difficult world. It is a touching and beautiful work by an extraordinary writer who has that rare and special ability to keep us spellbound by the wonder of a marvelous story.