Remy’s Reviews > The Second Mrs. Astor > Status Update

“The nature of hope is curious to me. It can sustain us through the darkest of times. It can buoy us above every reasonable expectation of despair. Yet hope can shatter us just as readily as the darkness can. People refer to it as false hope, but I think that’s misleading, because the feeling itself is painfully true.
It is a teacher ours hope, more precisely. A dangerous one.”

“Kinder hearts are stronger, her mother had once said.”

I’ve known this was coming, but I’m still not ready. I got so wrapped up in the first half, got attached to the characters and magical whirlwind romance. But now that’s ending. They’re in the /Titanic/, and it’s April 14. I can feel the heartbreak already, and I don’t want to read on.

“Love is a powerful force, Miss Fortune. There’s no denying it. But love and common sense don’t always go hand in hand.”

“Margaret nodded, then gave a dazzling smile; in it, Madeline had a glimpse of the girl she used to be, a girl with a soul like a flame, heroic enough to travel across the country to test her mettle just because she could.”

… “Whoever wants to know how it’s all going to end before it actually does?
Only poets and madmen, I would think.”

About charity and making a difference…
“ “Did it work?”
“No.” Margaret sighed, resting back. “Maybe a little. Not enough. It’s never really enough. That’s not how our world turns.” “

“I told him that I would not marry him, because we were too young, and I didn’t want to fall in love with the idea of love. I wanted /actual/ love, not a looking-glass reflection of it. Not stolen kisses, or sotted promises. I wanted the truth of love, the pure molten core of it, because anything short of that was just a cheat.”

You are so young….
“So everyone keeps telling me. /Young/ is not an unpardonable offense. /Young/ does not mean I cannot make rational decisions, or abide by them.”

“ “I’m not afraid of that,” she said, willing it to be true.”