It's been quite some time since a book kept me up until 2am! (One more chapter, just one more chapter, okay, just until this page...okay, just until I know what happens with this...okay, just one more chapter...-I'm sure we've all been there!) 
 Such a wonderfully vivid portrayal of these two women's lives. It's so interesting to read a novel with intertwining lives decades apart that *doesn't* have a big reveal at the end (where the present-day character comes to understand everything that occured in the past character's life.) The present-day character, Emma, was given a much better idea of who her grandmother Beattie was, while still not knowing the full gravity of what her grandmother endured. I think it created so much depth for me as a reader. I felt inextricably linked to each of the characaters, especially Beattie (the woman from the past). It was as though I was living her life alongside her, feeling each loss and joy just as she would. If an author can create that kind of a relationship between her characters and her reader, there really isn't anything more that I could ask of her. Brilliant book. Hope for more from Ms. Freeman along these lines!