A wedding in December – Anita Shreve

The whole concept of coming back together with people that you used to know so well, but have been separated from for many years is always a strange thing. Everyone always has their own stories and secrets and the characters in this book are no different. The death of one of their number at the end of their college years hangs over many of them and the circumstances surrounding Stephen's death are surrounded in some mystery and the reader is finally let into the story of what happened that night on the beach.

As with many of Shreve's book love, and the joy and pain of it, is a theme running throughout the book.  In this book there is a constant tension between Nora and Harrison following on from a stolen kiss when they were students. Twenty-six years later that tension spills over and we are caught up into the emotional pain that accompanies it.

There are a few strange things in this book that in my mind distract from the main story. Firstly, the book is set a few months after the September 11 attacks on America. As a result the characters in the book talk about it quite frequently, but in a way that feels forced and unnatural.

Another disaster is also mentioned throughout the book: the explosion of a French cargo ship in Halifax, Nova Scotia, in 1917. One of the books characters, Agnes, talks of this explosion to the group and is also writing a book, set in Halifax at the time of the explosion. Several extracts from her book are included in this book, but to be honest it didn't feel like this added much to the book as a whole. It's inclusion just felt a bit strange.

Overall I enjoyed this book, as I have done with my of Shreve's others, but I did feel that there were some unnecessary sections that didn't add much to the story as a whole. A shame really, but luckily it doesn't distract too much.