I know what you mean. Yesterday my husband was home sick and I drove on my own, listening to The Civil War (Shelby Foote), and had to resist the urge to beg my husband this AM to let me keep listening. It is very tough to leave an absorbing book, in the middle or at the end.

So, what book was it?

there was a bunch of extra stuff at the end of the book, so it wasn't until I had read half a page of acknowledgements that I realized the novel had ended

Oh I HATE that! It bumps me right out of the fictional world to have it screech to a halt so suddenly.

It is nice to read a book that you enjoy so much you're sad when it ends. I'm currently enjoying the heck out of The Monsters: Mary Shelley and the Curse of Frankenstein.

I've had the book for awhile, but was afraid it was going to be too scholarly and I'm really wasn't in the mood for something like that. But it is definitely written in a popular, easy-to-read style. I think the authors stretch a little much trying to make everything these folks wrote autobiographical.

But the book happily took me back to me days as an undergrad English major. I forgot all about these people who were going to Change The World By Writing Poetry. All the while dieing of consumption, and committing suicide.

Mary Shelley was 19 when she wrote Frankenstein.

Anyways, I'll be sad when I finish the book. May have to read Frankenstein again.

It was The House at Riverton by Kate Merton, which I picked up because I was having the same lost feeling a few days ago after finishing The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield, which may have been one of the best books I have ever read ever, ever. The two novels had very similar settings and slightly similar writing styles, so I feel like I've been in England in the 1910s for the past week and now I'm... not.

And the stupid novel last night didn't even have a blank page or half a blank page or any visual ending when it ended. Grar.

I liked The Thirteenth Tale, too. And I have a recommendation if you haven't already read it: The Historian.

I will be picking up The House at Riverton. It sounds great.

I have not read The Historian; I will add it to my list. Thanks!

I realized I also read Mary Reilly and The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde in the last couple weeks, too. I've been all about foggy turn-of-the-century London, it seems.

Inspired, I headed to the library and looked under S but found no Setterfield and ended up with Spark, Muriel "The Finishing School."

For work, I had to read "The Lost Symbol". *whimper*

That happened to me the first time that I read The Lord of the Rings. I didn't realized that a big chunk the last book is taken up by appendixes and so I hit the end pretty unexpectedly.

(yeah, the Historian was a good read. Second that.)

Kate Morton has another book that's also awesome--the title is something about a garden--AND has a new one coming out in November (The Distant Hours).

I hate it when that happens! I really get involved in a book and it makes me cranky when it ends prematurely. Now I know how women feel after sex ;-)

This is why I won't read the 19th and 20th volume of the Aubrey/Maturin series. As long as I haven't read them, there's more story ahead, and so it is somehow still unfolding.