Kristin Hannah Magic Hour

Magic Hour

Kristin Hannah

Ballantine, Mar 2006, $23.95

ISBN: 0345467523

The media and the parents of the victims, and even the survivors hold child psychiatrist Dr. Julia Cates culpable after a teenage patient of three years Amber Zuniga went on a rampage killing four peers. However, no one holds Julia to task more than she does herself, as she keeps looking over what she did, trying to figure out what she could have done differently to prevent the tragedy.

In between the Pacific and the Olympic National Forest, Rain Valley is a tiny insulated town, but has a problem. Chief of Police Ellie Barton pleads with her sister Julia to come to the northwest to help a mute little girl who came out of the nearby woods; local assumption is the child was raised by wolves. Julia heads north to work with the child she names Alice. Local Dr. Max Cerrasin assists her as she tries to reach Alice and learn who her parents are, while also rejecting the persistent courting advances of her new medical partner.

MAGIC HOUR is a deep character driven tale that grips the audience once the depressed Julia leaves Los Angeles for the Pacific Northwest, and never slows down until the final encounter. The exciting storyline is driven by the emotional needs of Julia, as much as by Alice. Who the child is, and who her parents are lead to a fine mystery (similar to a real story from the early twentieth century) to a superb drama.