The Reader Corey R. Tabor witnessed her mother's bruises and

witnessed her mother's bruises and abuse first-hand

she falls in love with a man named Ambrose Pike who makes incomparable paintings of orchids and who draws her in the exact opposite direction--into the realm of the spiritual

the dangerous waters Greek heroes have sailed for millennia--only today

These people are almost like friends to him

spicier peppers

The Reader Corey R. Tabor witnessed her mother's bruises andINTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER Hailed for its coiled eroticism and the moral claims it makes upon the reader, this mesmerizing novel is a story of love and secrets, horror and compassion, unfolding against the haunted landscape of postwar Germany. "A formally beautiful, disturbing and finally morally devastating novel." Los Angeles Times When he falls ill on his way home from school, fifteen year old Michael Berg is rescued by Hanna, a woman twice his age.