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Book Summary and Reviews of A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve

A Change in Altitude by Anita Shreve

A Change in Altitude

by Anita Shreve

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  • Published:
  • Sep 2009, 320 pages
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About this book

Book Summary

Margaret and Patrick have been married just a few months when they set off on what they hope will be a great adventure - a year living in Kenya. Margaret quickly realizes there is a great deal she doesn't know about the complex mores of her new home, and about her own husband.

A British couple invites the newlyweds to join on a climbing expedition to Mount Kenya, and they eagerly agree. But during their harrowing ascent, a horrific accident occurs. In the aftermath of the tragedy, Margaret struggles to understand what happened on the mountain and how these events have transformed her and her marriage, perhaps forever.

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Reviews

Media Reviews

"While some of these moments aren't bad, the scant dramatic tension and direct-to-video plot make this a slog." - Publishers Weekly

"[Her] usual pinpoint precision of Shreve's (Testimony) prose is not in evidence here...readers must work to discover the novel's time frame, and accusations of Margaret's complicity ...seem out of proportion..." - Library Journal

This information about A Change in Altitude was first featured in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.

Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.

Reader Reviews

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Molly B.

A Change in Altitude
I awaited your latest book and was sorely disappointed. Did not like Margaret at all. No character, no discipline; nothing.

The fact that African terminology was used seemed tiring since there was no glossary to refer to. It would have helped immensely.

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Author Information

Anita Shreve Author Biography

Anita Shreve grew up in Dedham, Massachusetts. Her approimately 20 novels include The Pilot's Wife, The Weight of Water, Eden Close, Strange Fits of Passion, Where or When, and Resistance.

Anita Shreve began writing fiction while working as a high school teacher after graduating from Tufts University. Although one of her first published stories, "Past the Island, Drifting," was awarded an O. Henry Prize in 1975, Shreve felt she couldn't make a living as a fiction writer so she became a journalist. She traveled to Africa and spent three years in Kenya, writing articles that appeared in magazines such as Quest, US, and Newsweek. Back in the United States, she turned to raising her children and writing freelance articles for magazines. Shreve later expanded two of these ...

... Full Biography
Link to Anita Shreve's Website

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