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Book Review of The Sight of the Stars

The Sight of the Stars
emeraldfire avatar reviewed on
Helpful Score: 1


Dressed in a new suit with 150 dollars in his pocket, Adam Arnring says goodbye to his family and boards a train for the West. The year is 1907. Adam is nineteen years old, a young man with stars in his eyes who has dreams of a bright future in the wide open spaces of America. Far from his New Jersey roots, Adam lands a job in a small department store in a booming Texas town. He is taken with the beautiful and untouchable Emma Rothirsch who inhabits a world whose doors are forever closed to him. But Adam is determined to fight for what he wants.

One is Emma, another is to build a lasting empire to pass on to his children and grandchildren. But just when Adam seems to be able to attain what he wants, fate intervenes. Tragedy strikes from the trenches of World War I, setting in motion a series of events which will have reprecussions throughout the years.

Adam, now the head of a growing family and a prosperous department store, succumbs to a moment of weakness culminating in an ultimate act of betrayal - one that is unforgivable. Now as a new generation of the family is born, a secret from the Arnrings' past reaches forward to shatter their lives.

Surprisingly, this is one of very few books by Ms. Plain that is completely new to me. Somehow, it never even registered on my radar that she had written a new book until this one had been out for almost a decade. I have always thought Belva Plain was a wonderful author - in my opinion, she was a natural born storyteller, able to develop the type of characters that readers could really relate to and plots that were incredibly realistic.

The Sight of the Stars by Belva Plain is just such a book - I thoroughly enjoyed reading this story, and was completely swept away by it; avidly wanting to know what would happen next. I would definitely give this book an A+! and would whole-heartedly recommend it to others who enjoy reading historical family sagas.