ANXIOUS HEARTS
by Tucker Shaw
The tragic tales of two pairs of lovers weave in and out in this tale based on a hoary classic. One plotline retells Longfellow’s “Evangeline,” from the third-person point of view of Gabriel, as he woos, weds and loses his beloved in the 1755 deportation of the Acadians. The second is the first-person narration of Eva, a present-day teen who has fallen for Gabe, an angst-ridden version of the earlier Gabriel, though Shaw has inexplicably moved the action from Canada to northern Maine. Where Gabriel is dragged away from his sweetheart, Gabe leaves more willingly; his motivation for doing so is hazy. Eva is left to try to figure out where he has gone and why. Though she heads off to a work-study program downstate, she never stops searching for him, a role reversal since Gabriel does most of the seeking in his version. Hackneyed dialogue, superficial character development and the failure to fully capture the setting all diminish this effort. It may appeal to romance readers in need of a fix but is unlikely to entertain a broader audience. (Romance/historical fiction. 11 & up)