Agnes’s desperate actions breed secrecy, and the resulting silence echoes into the future. But when Bohemian naturalist and glassblower Ignace Novak reignites Agnes’s passion for science, she begins to imagine a different life, and she sets her mind to getting it. After years as an independent woman of fortune, influential with the board of a prominent university because of her financial donations, she is now subject to the whims of an abusive, spendthrift husband. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.In 1910, Agnes Carter makes the wrong choice in marriage. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. Glassworks is a layered, lyrical family saga about love and determination.ĭisclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. Always, there is a Novak at the center of the story, reaching with breathless anticipation for happiness, stability, comfort, and forgiveness.

The connecting threads stretch thin as the book progresses, but they do not snap. The emotional impact of each person’s choices reverberates through the years with intimate psychological depth––mirrored in the intricate descriptions of the glass models. Flip is a screw-up who internalizes every negative ever spoken of her. Ed is nervous and insecure-a simple man with simpler tastes. This is reflected in the characters too: Agnes is confident, even arrogant, in the beginning. In the early 1900s, the book’s language is formal it becomes more relaxed through the years until there is text speak in the mid-2010s. In 1986, with the drawing long ago destroyed, Ed bequeaths the glass bee to his child, Novak, quoting his mother: “surviving hardship enriches life and strengthens us to meet it.” In 2015, Flip finds the bee buried in her car-a lost gift from a heartbroken stranger perhaps a new beginning.Įach era is rendered in distinctive terms. It’s a pale substitute for parental regard. In 1938, Agnes sends that drawing and a glass replica of the bee to her son, Ed. She renders a full scene of life and death.

He is stung by a honeybee fascinated, he asks Agnes to sketch the bee’s final moments. In 1910, heiress Agnes takes a renowned glass artist, Ignace, on a tour of the university arboretum, showing him the local flora and fauna that he will be recreating during his residency. In Olivia Wolfgang-Smith’s emotive novel Glassworks, four generations struggle under the weight of unexpressed feelings, unsaid words, and unmet needs.

Glassworks by Olivia Wolfgang-Smith