The Marriage Portrait

The Marriage Portrait is by Maggie O’Farrell who also wrote Hamnet. Because I liked Hamlet, I persisted, but the first 100 pages or so I felt were too wordy, too flowery, way too detailed. I even began skimming. But at some point the book took off and I was totally won over. I became so intrigued by the characters and the circumstances I couldn’t stop reading and at the point her descriptive language became an asset. All in all, a wonderful book, once you get into it.