272 pages
English language
Published Feb. 5, 2002 by Berkley Trade.
Vonny lives on the island of Martha's Vineyard with her husband Andre and son Simon. Their neighbour Elizabeth, a woman in her seventies, falls from an upstairs window and her granddaughter Jody is summoned to nurse her through her convalescence. The scene is set for a magical story of love and loneliness, of terror and human frailty, of the mystery and grace of ordinary experience. Alice Hoffman's ability to fuse the domestic and the mythic in a narrative of such gentle yet magnetic force confirms her stature as one of the most gifted of American novelists.
This book is a 3.5 star for me, so I'm rounding to 4. It was incredibly engaging - I felt connected to the characters almost immediately and couldn't put it down - but I felt like the story was somehow incomplete. The writing was great, though, and I felt very much a part of the book's environment.
