This had me remembering a friend who was married to a Lutheran Priest, and as I was not a parishioner, she shared much and I always thought, after they had been moved to a different parish, God please help this lady, just have the gumption to leave! Would not quite wish the bus on him though!! (tongue in cheek)! I wish that I had known more about Peter's character. We see him mostly through the eyes of his wife and children. His stubbornness and own crisis of faith when he is turned down for a promotion makes him an unlikable character. But then he is not the focus of psychological introspection like Anna is, which is only fitting since she is the title character. But a little more character development would have provided more depth to the novel. Ella, the busybody, did not seem very put out for having spread false gossip to Peter which led to his demise. She was sad, but she bears a lot of responsibility for his death. Gibbons, Fiachra (30 May 2003). "Queens of the bonkbuster and Aga saga defend the art - and heart - of their fiction". The Guardian . Retrieved 24 March 2019. She has written the first novel in Harper Collins updating of the Jane Austen canon, The Austen Project. Her version of "Sense and Sensibility" was published in October 2013 with limited success.

a b c d e f g Allardice, Lisa (11 February 2006). "Survival tactics". The Guardian . Retrieved 24 March 2019.

For the past two decades, the Bouveries have served God and their parish in a myriad of ways. As minister of his congregation, Peter Bouverie has always written such powerful sermons, preached to the faithful, and counselled so many troubled couples. Everyone in the tiny parish of Loxford also knows of the rector's wife Anna - she is so dutiful, organized, prayerful, and self-possessed. In fact, Anna Bouverie is nothing if not absolutely perfect for the position - she is the quintessential minister's wife. I will say that Trollope has down pat the art of portraying what people are really thinking in any given episode of this book. It can be quite amusing to hear people's inner thoughts so directly. THERE IS A GLARING ERROR IN THIS BOOK - WHY HASN'T ANYONE ELSE NOTICED IT? My book club read The Rector's Wife this month and I was astonished that I was the only one to have noticed the mistake. In the last two or three chapters Anna is seen driving around the village and elsewhere in a carefree mood: "It was curious and exciting to drive so much, to feel that the car was hers to drive." Now, we have to presume that "the car" is the same car her husband was always driving, as we know it's a one-car household. But... hey... wasn't that the car that was involved in a horrific collision with a bus just a few days before? Insurance companies (or panel beaters in the unlikely case that the car wasn't a complete write-off) don't work that fast! Joanna devotes a considerable amount of time to supporting her chosen charities and in particular those associated with literacy. She says: ‘I’m really saddened by the abiding shame that accompanies not being able to read and write properly – and cheered by the real joy that comes with learning to do both.

I had read one other book, "Other people's children", by this author. I found that book to be intriguing. What I appreciated was the unflinching way that the author made her characters face obstacles for which sometimes there were no happy-ever-after endings. Her father was of the same family as the Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope; she is his fifth-generation niece, [7] and is a cousin of the writer and broadcaster James Trollope. Of inheriting the name, she has said: In this book, Anna is the wife of Peter, the rector, in a small English village. As a rector's wife, she is supposed to be beyond reproach and dedicated to her husband. Anna finds herself in a kind of existential and identity crisis as she seeks more for her life than this assigned role. Scott, Tony (12 October 1994). "Masterpiece Theatre: The Rector's Wife". Variety . Retrieved 24 March 2019.Before she was famous ... Joanna Trollope". The Times. 21 July 2005 . Retrieved 24 March 2019. (subscription required) Born in her grandfather’s rectory in the Cotswold village of Minchinhampton in December 1943, Joanna says: ‘Being born somewhere with a strong local sense, like the Cotswolds, gave me not just a sense of rootedness, but a capacity to value landscape and weather and the accessible richness of community life.” He is then told by a neighbour that Anna is having an affair. As it turns out she IS, but not with the man the neighbour accuses her of. Peter is livid, gets in his car to go and find Anna and tell her that he wants a divorce, and is hit by a bus and killed. ​ Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge. There is a twist at the end which was problematic in the way it so easily resolved everything (although it was still worth reading afterward to see a lot of insights into the other people in the book). I think the answer to mental illness within the book is very inadequate, perhaps dangerously so. I also did not like a suggestion in the book, which a couple of characters voiced and noone troubled that a beautiful woman who is being sexually harassed has the responsibility to put an end to it (and can easily do so).

Trollope appeared on a 1994 edition of Desert Island Discs. Trollope remarked that men often suggested her books were trivial, to which she liked to respond: "It is a grave mistake to think there is more significance in great things than in little things", paraphrasing Virginia Woolf. [22] [23] Bibliography [ edit ] As Joanna Trollope [24] [ edit ] Some of Joanna Trollope's historical novels are re-edited as Caroline Harvey** Historical novels [ edit ] Very few writers who could be said to be prophets, true inventors, What most of us are is interpreters, translators. We take the old human truths that Shakespeare and Sophocles described inimitably, and we re-interpret them for our own times, in our own voices, coloured by as it were, our own messages to the world. It also surprised me to see Anna give in when Peter went to Pricewell's and told the manager that Anna was resigning. This seemed to me more likely to occur in the 1950's than the 1990's.I would like to give it 2 stars because it is depressing and it made me so sad at the way the author (and quite possibly a lot of society) sees the church, and because I got so cross with their shitty relationship; they did absolutely everything you SHOULDN'T do when your marriage is crumbling. I didn't like the absolute cop out of an ending - him dying just made everything ok. Sad, sure, but she was able to work, have a boyfriend (later down the line, but still), get a house that was hers, help her children yadda yadda. He got out of the pit of depression he'd fallen into and refused to ask for help to get out of, but without having to do anything stupid. There was no judgement from anyone because who can judge a woman who has lost her husband like that? I thought that the resolution of the story with a car crash killing Peter made sense. I could see that the gossip conveyed by Ella might have been the last straw for him. Not that he actively courted suicide, but when the opportunity presented itself, he decided to act. So read this book if you want to read a nice book about being a Vicars wife, (god bless them all for they suffer dearly) and cheer at the end when she finds her independence. Though, it probably might be a bit evil to cheer and reflect on saying, oh good job, to the bus driver!!!!