Luanne Rice Summer’s Child

Summer's Child

Luanne Rice

Every June 21, the Connecticut media makes a big show of the vanishing of pregnant pixie Mara Jameson nine years ago. Like everyone else retired State Police Officer Patrick Murphy, who worked the still unsolved case, reflects on how the married Mara went out to work her grandmother's rose garden, but vanished; but unlike most people who believe her spouse Edward Hunter got away with killing Mara Patrick believes she is alive.

In Cape Hawk near the Gulf of St. Lawrence, Lily Malone owns the store In Stitch while raising her almost nine years old daughter Rose alone. Rose has a heart condition that has required surgery and will require one more operation. Lily reflects back to when she was Mara knowing she misses her beloved grandmother but fears what Edward would do to their child if he ever found them; that dread that he will do something ugly made her run in the first place. However, the past is catching up to Lily who fears Rose will be his victim if he finds them.

The suspense grips the audience from the start even though the lead protagonist does not make an appearance until a few chapters into the gripping storyline. Instead readers "see" Mara through the eyes of her grandmother and Patrick; ironically Edward's perspective comes out much later well after the audience has met Lily, Rose, the child's best friend Jess and their kind neighbor Dr. Liam Niell. Lily is a courageous soul struggling not to be a "bruised rose" before returning home (see the upcoming SUMMER OF ROSES for those events) with Liam at her side ready to protect both of his females.

Bantam, Jun 2005, $7.50, 400 pp.

ISBN: 0553587625

Harriet Klausner