The Madness of a Seduced Woman.

"The power of this passionate novel lies in the creation of its heroine, Agnes. I can't remember a single other character in fiction with whom I have ever identified more" MARGARET FORSTER
"This book asserts the importance of women's feelings, not just this woman's but that of others dedicated to the object of love" FINANCIAL TIMES
"A remarkable book...a riveting and intricate and altogether astonishing novel" ALICE WALKER
"Striking...memorable...a most remarkable book" FAY WELDON
"Fascinating... a novel of passion and violence" COMPANY
"Complex and satisfying - an absorbing, wonderfully inventive psychological tale" NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"Impossible to put down...a richly textured, engrossing narrative" PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY
"Stunning - an American cousin for Hardy's Tess" USA TODAY
"Literature of the first magnitude...Schaeffer has awesome imaginative and inventive powers" CLEVELAND PLAIN DEALER
"Original and deeply serious...a number of issues especially pertinent to our time shape the course of the narrative" CHICAGO TRIBUNE BOOK WORLD
"For those who hunger for the fiction of extreme emotion...a woman imagined as we would never dare" NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
"A breathtakingly detailed study of a tortured mind...a compelling psychological thriller that is not only astonishing, but believable" KANSAS CITY STAR
"An exquisitely visual book...whose words and images stay in the mind...lovely, moving, seamless" HOUSTON CHRONICLE
"No contemporary author can write more vividly and more powerfully about the obsessive passion of a young woman" MARGE PIERCY
"A passionate book, the story is tragic, the writing powerful, the details fascinating" WEST COAST REVIEW OF BOOKS
"Serious, honest, intelligent...at the heart of the novel beats the fibrillating pulse of obsession" THE NATION
"A brilliant work of fiction...plunges the depths and scales the dizzying heights of a turn-of-the-century woman entrapped by her past but obsessed with her future" FORT WORTH STAR-TELEGRAM
"Intelligent fiction throughout...flaring with Schaeffer's richly cumulative prose, her subtly resonating images...and occasionally disturbing insights" KIRKUS REVIEWS
"Schaeffer's art is so astonishingly poised that, reading, one imagines it is not written, but breathed...the moving inwardness of her characters pervades the heart's abyss" CYNTHIA OZICK
" A great many women have been trying to write THE feminist novel...THIS is the novel they've been trying to write" MARGARET FORSTER

During all those years when everyone wanted me to tell them…
how I came to fire that shot, I never wanted to talk.
Now I think I do.
Agnes Dempster: young, beautiful, and accused of murder.
Vermont, 1890. After an unhappy childhood, Agnes Dempster turns her back on her family and escapes to the city to begin a new life. There she meets Frank Holt, a local stonecutter, a man who captures her imagination and opens her eyes to an entirely different world.
They begin a relationship, but over time Agnes becomes more dependent on Frank and this soon becomes an obsession - a dangerous one. And when she discovers her beloved is not as perfect as the image she had created of him, the cracks in her already fragile psyche begin to deepen. He is a betrayer, a man who will never make her happy, and as her life spirals out of control Agnes is propelled into a state of barely-controlled madness; a madness that leads to a chaotic and destructive resolution which will affect her and those around her for the rest of their lives…
Set at the end of the 19th century, and based on true events, a writer of extraordinary talent brings us a powerful and ultimately heart-breaking story of love, passion, desperation and vengeance.
"The power of this passionate novel lies in the creation of its heroine, Agnes. I can't remember a single other character in fiction with whom I have ever identified more" Margaret Forster
"A remarkable book...a riveting and intricate and altogether astonishing novel."
Alice Walker