Love As A Stranger - Owen Marshall

When love is not madness, it is not love."

Set in Auckland, this tense novel explores the themes of love, and the tragic consequences of obsession. Sarah, mid-fifties and with time to waste as her husband undergoes medical treatment in hospital, spends her time wandering through Grafton Rd Cemetery, where she chances upon a stranger while contemplating the grave of a long-dead girl.  Friendship turns quickly into an illicit love affair.

Linking into the story of the dead-girls' grave marker  (murdered in 1886 by a spurned suitor), the reader quickly becomes aware that this story will not have a happy ending.  Unsettling, tense and suspenseful, Love As A Stranger, takes the reader into the world of exciting love, obsessive love and finally, menacing love.

​A great read for those who love their New Zealand literature tense, well-written and highly believable.

PM

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