My 5-Star review in entirety published at Amazon for HM Holten’s gem in the genre of Historical Literary Fiction:

Throughout HM Holten’s ‘Snares and Delusions,’ I wore my heart on my sleeve as I empathized with her protagonist, Hedda Gullberg (West), who wades against the tide of social mores at the turn of the twentieth century.

Whereas the reader first gets a glimpse of Hedda’s tenacity on the brink of death, rocking back and forth on the floor of a hospital in Copenhagen in 1936, her dreamlike delusions bring us to the beginning of her trials and tribulations.

Born in May of 1865, Hedda’s childhood and adolescence may very well have been the best years of her life, despite an ill-fated love. Then, there’s her sister and father contemplating the monetary gains of marrying her off to a boorish simpleton.

Through twists of fate, bouts of homelessness, marriage to an abusive husband with congenital syphilis who is of the prevailing opinion of the times that women have a soul but no intelligence—she perseveres. Carrying and caring for a child born out of wedlock to a married man, she makes her way in the world yet again.

The story is told impeccably: well-written, infused with history and its impact, period dialogue, and finely-drawn characters—especially Hedda.

Apropos for the last scene in the novel, Hedda makes her way toward the beach. She finds a spot and rocks back and forth, contemplating her life of snares and delusions, grateful for surviving the tides against her.

I highly recommend this literary masterpiece which, for this reader, elicited more tears than smiles.