Dan nods. “Do you like her?” he asks.
She can’t speak. The words stick in her throat. It is too much. Using his immense talent and a lot of patience, Dan has fashioned something beautiful and utterly poignant out of the basest of materials: clay, wax, and metal. The sculpture is perfect; it is the perfect symbol for their future together. Pandora’s box is open. All of life’s evils have already flown out into the world, released to cause their inevitable mischief and pain, but Dora knows it doesn’t matter anymore. She knows that now. Hope remains. While she and Dan are together, the two of them with their beautiful baby girl, and Cassie and Helen, and Richard and Violet, all of them living their large, messy, mixed-up lives, she knows they will have hope. Hope and love. And after all, what more is there to want in life?
Dora seizes Dan’s hand and raises it to her lips. “She’s absolutely perfect.”
Then, grinning, she pulls him out of the studio and back into their apartment and their life together, the sound of their laughter trailing behind them all the way.
Questions for
Further Discussion
Several of the female characters have names that come from mythology—Pandora, Cassandra, and Helen. What do their names say about these three women, and about the book? Does it have any commonalities with a classic tragedy? Meanwhile, Alfie, Richard, and Violet have more modern names—why do you think the author chose them?
The primary setting of THE HOUSE OF TIDES is of paramount importance to the story. Do you think that Clifftops serves as a character in the novel? Why or why not?
Did you find Helen to be a sympathetic character? Why or why not? Do you think Richard bears more blame than he acknowledges for the erosion of their marriage?
The Tides are a family with a great number of secrets. Do you think it is ever acceptable to keep secrets in a relationship? When should parents keep secrets from their children? What about the reverse?
Richell shows us where each of the major characters—Dora, Cassie, Helen, and Richard—have found themselves, with a great attention to sense of place: Richard’s more modern house, Cassie’s pastoral home, Dora’s urban loft, and so on. Which of these environments is the most similar to the one in which you live? Which would you most like to experience?
Building on the previous question, how does Helen’s relationship with Clifftops change over the course of the novel?
At the end of the novel, do you believe that the characters have found closure and forgiveness? Who has had the easiest path to it, and who the hardest? Is hard-won closure any more valuable than that which comes easily?
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Contents
Title Page
Welcome
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Epigraph
Prologue
Chapter 1: Dora
Chapter 2: Helen
Chapter 3: Dora
Chapter 4: Cassie
Chapter 5: Dora
Chapter 6: Cassie
Chapter 7: Dora
Chapter 8: Helen
Chapter 9: Dora
Chapter 10: Helen
Chapter 11: Helen
Chapter 12: Dora
Chapter 13: Cassie
Chapter 14: Dora
Chapter 15: Dora
Chapter 16: Helen
Chapter 17: Dora
Chapter 18: Helen
Chapter 19: Dora
Chapter 20: Cassie
Epilogue
Questions for Further Discussion
Newsletters
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Hannah Richell
Cover design by Brigid Pearson; cover photos: © SHIGEKI MATSUOKA/amanaimages/Corbis (house) © Joan Kocak/Trevillion Images (hill). Copyright © 2013 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher is unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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Originally published as Secrets of the Tides in the UK by Orion Books in 2012.
First American ebook edition: July 2013
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ISBN 978-1-4555-2108-1
The House of Tides Page 39