On My Coffee Table (if I had one)

Last week I reported to the County Courthouse for Jury Duty. I carried with me this book that had been loaned to me a few weeks before.
I never did get called for a trial, but I was able to get far enough into the book to know that if I didn’t finish it, I wouldn’t be able to think of anything else. The first night of reading, my eyes wouldn’t stay open, but the second night, I was up until 2 a.m. reading AND crying my eyes out. As all the loose ends came together (though one part seemed a bit far-fetched) I think I cried harder. Now, I don’t need to cry to appreciate a book, but it moved me that much.
In its most basic form, it is the story of three women- a mother and her two daughters, but it is truly more complex than that. We see their present lives, and go back in time to the mother’s life in Leningrad. There is heartbreak, and joy, and even a combination of the two at the same time.

I recently also read Anita Shreve’s, Fortune’s Rocks. This story takes place in the late 1800’s in New Hampshire, and for some of the story, at a home by the sea. The descriptions of the sunlight on the sand and water, the smell of sea air, the heat of a beach in summer, and the cold of winter- were right on target. The main character was brought up in a well-to-do family, but falls in love with a married man, and well, I don’t want to tell too much. I enjoyed reading this as well.
I would like to laughingly add though, that at one point in the story, while the woman is at the house by the sea, and cleaning it from top to bottom, the frenzy with which she does this, almost made me want to throw on my work clothes and do the same in my home! I am really laughing as I admit this- because though I like a clean house, and I do spend time cleaning it, I NEVER WANT to do it! I guess there is something about Anita’s writing that moves me. Or almost moves me. I didn’t get up to clean, I just kept on reading.

Has anyone else read either book?