I do believe in reincarnation or transmigration of souls, and love good historical novels, so I was happy to come across a copy of this. It begins in 1968, in England, where Celia Marsdon is greatly troubles by angst that cannot be understood, and her husband Richard is becoming extremely abusive. Celia's mother has a friend, a Hindu doctor, Akananda, with a deep understanding of the laws of karma and past lives, who helps her get release from the troubles of a past life.We are then taken to Eng...

1960s Great Britain back into mid-16th century England. reincarnation. undying loving. characters reborn but carrying the same damn baggage. all of that. for the most part this is an enjoyable novel about two lovers reborn who knows how many times, destined for tragic ends until they are able to sort out all of their issues. I loved the opening chapters: cosmopolitan aristocrats lounging around the pool, touring historical sites with rolled eyes, making loaded comments to each other during a ...

My mom gave me this book to read as a teen. It was amazing! It is set in two time periods so is a modern and historical mixed into one. You start with two people getting married in present day. Then due to circumstances they end up discovering they knew each other before in 1500s England. Obviously a very different time. Their love affair in the past was rather complicated as it wasn't "meant to be". The story explores past lives and reincarnation which was fascinating. The author clearly did he...

Try switching the genders in this story -- now it's a lonely (male) student developing a crush on a (female) teacher, who doesn't encourage the crush and tries to dissuade the student. Student carries a torch for the teacher for years, despite rarely seeing each other (except for a weird-almost-sexual-encounter during the middle of a home invasion??) and being married and widowed. Student sees teacher again, sexual advances ensue, teacher says "No" very clearly in several ways. Student then give...

Rating: 3 stars out of five, but only because I still love the memoryThe Publisher Says: This unforgettable story of undying love combines mysticism, suspense, mystery, and romance into a web of good and evil that stretches from 16th-century England to the present day. Richard Marsdon marries a young American woman named Celia, brings her to live at his English estate, and all seems to be going well. But now Richard has become withdrawn, and Celia is constantly haunted by a vague dread. When she...

I must be the only man who has ever read this novel. If you've been having difficulty getting to sleep, Green Darkness can help. I'm surprised some pharmaceutical company hasn't named a hypnotic after it. It's a long, dreary romance, rendered in prose that's the stylistic equivalent of dishwater, about a modern couple plagued by unresolved issues from a past life exasperating in all the wrong ways. The story idea seemed interesting, and I slogged through it one summer when I was in junior high s...

I read Green Darkness when it was first published, so I would have been a young teenager. It was the beginning of my love of dual time stories, and the forbidden love between Celia, the fair maiden, and the monk struck a chord with me. When I added it to GR, my nostalgic memory rated it 4 stars.If I was reading it now for the first time, I would be inclined to rate it 3 stars. The political and religious repercussions of the reigns of Edward, Mary, and Elizabeth made much more sense to me now an...

I read this book when it was "new" and omg I LOVED it. It was complex and dark and romantic and my then 14 yr old self couldn't get enough.

Someone commented that it's "dated". It wasn't then but it's a reason I've never tried to re-read it. I want to keep the feeling of how wonderful it was to younger less world-weary me.

That's my absolute favourite by Anya Seton. She combines present and past in this story of a crime in a medieval setting and how it's still affecting the present. She explains political and social issues in an easy to understand way. One of the books I keep re-reading

I was really looking forward to reading this book. Maybe that's why I was so disappointed with it. I truly liked the idea of the book (reincarnation and karma- two things I strongly believe in), which is the only thing that prevented me from rating it with one star. The characters were not real, I didn't felt as though I knew very much about how they were feeling and that some things were ridiculously elaborate (Julian is from Italy- we get it! I think that is mentioned at least 300 times. Yet h...