Isn't
finding a good book to fit your mood like trying to settle on a good
recipe for dinner? When nothing on the shelf seems to hit the spot
the library is always a great place to browse. I just wish libraries
hired reader advisory people to let you bounce ideas off of and get
good ideas from, and librarians are trained NOT to give you an
opinion. So I returned home with several in the supernatural vein and
settled on this little tome. Just what I needed, a one afternoon read
with a combination of ghost story/mystery/coming-of-age. Yeah!
Kate
Cypher is now 41, divorced, and a public school nurse. Her mother,
Jean still lives in a declining Vermont hippie commune where Kate
grew up. But now she needs help and is suffering from Alzheimer’s.
Kate reluctantly returns home to help out and to make arrangements
for her mother's care. Upon her return a murder occurs which seems
eerily similar to one thirty years earlier.
In
1971 the local school outcast, and Kate's secret friend, Del Griswold
was brutally murdered. In 2002 two young girls sitting with boys at a
campfire are telling ghost stories of Del when one of them is
murdered in a similar manner. The murder is close to Jean's cabin and
that night Jean had been wandering the woods returning home with
blood on her hands. Kate is forced to relive her coming-of-age years
when she was one of the “hippie kids” and desperately wanted to
be accepted at school. She loved her wild and spirited friend Del but
she kept their friendship a secret because Del, taunted as “The
Potato Girl,” was the school outcast. Her family was poor and rough
and scary. Del's death scarred Kate with guilt and grief. When Kate
escaped the commune life she never intended to return. But her return
immerses her in the two crimes. She reconnects with her old flame and
embarks on a quest to solve the murders.
There
is enough supernatural intrigue, romance, conflict, and tension to
keep the reader turning the pages. You won't be disappointed if you
need a short read of a ghostly nature. I really think that the author
did an excellent job of illustrating how childhood bullying occurs
and insight into the mind of a child that so wants to fit in that she
cannot speak out or try to stop abuse of a friend.
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