Billie's Kiss

By Elizabeth Knox

Book Overview

It begins with a kiss. And a leap across cold, dark waters. In the spring of 1903, the sheltered Billie Paxton, her older sister, and brother-in-law are sailing to their new home on a remote Scottish... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0345450523
• ISBN13: 9780345450524
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Ballantine Books
• Length: 343 Pages
• Weight: 1.10 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.2" x 5.8" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Absolutely gorgeous writing...

I loved this book, as I've loved all of Knox's work so far. Her writing is gorgeous, and I always try to take my time reading her books simply to enjoy the language. The story, as her previous ones have been, is less about the mystery of the boat's explosion and more about the people involved. Knox's characters are all fascinating, and I lost myself in the story, not wanting to put the book down (a problem when in graduate school). I tend to think of Knox's books not as thrillers or mysteries or dramas, but as character studies - watching the characters as their lives mesh or tear apart, as they are wounded and as they heal. The plot is interesting and intricate, but it still takes a back seat to the lives of Billie, Murdo and Geordie. Absolutely gorgeous book.

One of the best I've read in a long time

A mesmerizing tale...Elizabeth Knox is a gifted writer - Billie's Kiss definitely invites comparisons to Bronte's Jane Eyre.

Romantic (in the old sense of the word)

A penniless young woman, a bit simple (perhaps dyslexic?), a survivor of a dockside explosion on a bleakly-remote Scottish island...A moody relative of the local landowner, suspicious of/attracted to the young woman in question...A comotose brother-in-law, a pompous (but generous) rich paterfamilias and his various relatives and hangers-on... The recipe for a turgid potboiler, a typical Gothic romance? Well, if you think of the word "romantic" as having its base in the word "roman," the French for "book," then I guess that Billie's Kiss fits the definition, but in Elizabeth Knox's capable hands, this homage to the old-fashioned thriller goes far beyond the expected. Her writing captivates, catching her characters' complexities of personality in a just a few deft lines. She has the ability to make the unexpected and unlikely perfectly believable---this novel is nothing like her previous book, The Vintner's Luck, but they share a profound sense of edgy otherworldliness, of inexplicable fate, and her writing skills are such as to pull the reader thouroughly and willingly into her world-view. I liked this one very much, and I am eager for Ms. Knox's next.