Dead hippies save the Maine forest in a shamanistic fable only a New Age devotee could love, though followers of Arthurian and magical fantasies may swell the readership. Pot-smoking Tex and Molly, middle-agers who live on a houseboat in Cold Bay (off Dublin, Maine), get high, accidentally fall down a hidden woodland well and, like Alice, wake up in wonderland. In this afterlife they're more alive than dead. Their astral surroundings are much like those in the material world, and Grant (Views from the Oldest House, 1989, etc,) has some fun with the differences (Tex must concentrate profoundly to make a cup of tea). The afterlife is peopled with prehuman spirits as well as with spirits imagined and given life by humans. Amusingly, Tex hides in an acorn that is eaten by a pregnant bear and then issues forth as a cub when the mother is shot; Molly's version of the afterlife, meanwhile, is less strongly drawn than Tex's and fits more into goddess mythology. As things move forward, Gene Deere, a plant geneticist with the powerful, tree-gobbling Gulf Atlantic corporation, wants to change the way trees are grown and to replant the forest with an ``unnaturally'' shaped tree that will be more energy-efficient to harvest. He falls in with Ludi, a sparkly young member of the late Tex and Molly's Cold Bay Street Players (they hold rites and dance around in animal masks to drive off bad treekiller vibes), who eventually leads him down the right path. When a Gulf Atlantic forest burn-off threatens to wipe out huge tracts, wily Tex, who has himself been hectoring the seemingly helpless dryads to unionize, invokes the greatest prehuman spirit of all, the Bishop of Worms, to save Dublin from becoming a wasteland. A between-worlds experience, in all, that Grant's facile fabulism robs of the force, beauty, and imaginative verve needed if an afterlife tale is to have a strong pull.
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1996
ISBN: 0-380-97304-9
Page Count: 416
Publisher: Avon/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 1996
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.
Sisters work together to solve a child-abandonment case.
Ellie and Julia Cates have never been close. Julia is shy and brainy; Ellie gets by on charm and looks. Their differences must be tossed aside when a traumatized young girl wanders in from the forest into their hometown in Washington. The sisters’ professional skills are put to the test. Julia is a world-renowned child psychologist who has lost her edge. She is reeling from a case that went publicly sour. Though she was cleared of all wrongdoing, Julia’s name was tarnished, forcing her to shutter her Beverly Hills practice. Ellie Barton is the local police chief in Rain Valley, who’s never faced a tougher case. This is her chance to prove she is more than just a fading homecoming queen, but a scarcity of clues and a reluctant victim make locating the girl’s parents nearly impossible. Ellie places an SOS call to her sister; she needs an expert to rehabilitate this wild-child who has been living outside of civilization for years. Confronted with her professional demons, Julia once again has the opportunity to display her talents and salvage her reputation. Hannah (The Things We Do for Love, 2004, etc.) is at her best when writing from the girl’s perspective. The feral wolf-child keeps the reader interested long after the other, transparent characters have grown tiresome. Hannah’s torturously over-written romance passages are stale, but there are surprises in store as the sisters set about unearthing Alice’s past and creating a home for her.
Wacky plot keeps the pages turning and enduring schmaltzy romantic sequences.Pub Date: March 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-345-46752-3
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2005
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.
Life lessons.
Angie Malone, the youngest of a big, warm Italian-American family, returns to her Pacific Northwest hometown to wrestle with various midlife disappointments: her divorce, Papa’s death, a downturn in business at the family restaurant, and, above all, her childlessness. After several miscarriages, she, a successful ad exec, and husband Conlan, a reporter, befriended a pregnant young girl and planned to adopt her baby—and then the birth mother changed her mind. Angie and Conlan drifted apart and soon found they just didn’t love each other anymore. Metaphorically speaking, “her need for a child had been a high tide, an overwhelming force that drowned them. A year ago, she could have kicked to the surface but not now.” Sadder but wiser, Angie goes to work in the struggling family restaurant, bickering with Mama over updating the menu and replacing the ancient waitress. Soon, Angie befriends another young girl, Lauren Ribido, who’s eager to learn and desperately needs a job. Lauren’s family lives on the wrong side of the tracks, and her mother is a promiscuous alcoholic, but Angie knows nothing of this sad story and welcomes Lauren into the DeSaria family circle. The girl listens in, wide-eyed, as the sisters argue and make wisecracks and—gee-whiz—are actually nice to each other. Nothing at all like her relationship with her sluttish mother, who throws Lauren out when boyfriend David, en route to Stanford, gets her pregnant. Will Lauren, who’s just been accepted to USC, let Angie adopt her baby? Well, a bit of a twist at the end keeps things from becoming too predictable.
Heartfelt, yes, but pretty routine.Pub Date: July 1, 2004
ISBN: 0-345-46750-7
Page Count: 400
Publisher: Ballantine
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2004
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