Marshall N. Klimasewiski The Cottagers

The Cottagers

Marshall N. Klimasewiski

Norton, May 2006, $24.95

ISBN: 0393060772

Nineteen years old unemployed Cyrus Collingwood lives year round in East Sooke on Vancouver Island. He detests the summer rentals though the hot weather invaders are the prime source of income for the locals. Cyrus enjoys being a peeping tom spying on the temporary newcomers and in brazen moments loves to assault their rentals though besides scaring ten years off their lives, he normally does not harm them.

This summer he obsesses over two families; married Brooklyn couple Samina and Nicholas and their three-year-old daughter Hilda; and their St. Louis friends Laurel and Greg. He pretends to be their friend by showing them the hidden highlights of the island. However, the brilliant teen reads his guests quite nicely as he realizes there is an undercurrent professional rivalry and resentment between the historian Nicholas, the biographer Greg, and the English professor Laurel as well as realizing Greg is a womanizer. The exotic looking Samina is the one that attracts Cyrus as she does not fit with the others and he fails to psychology profile her. When Nicholas fails to return from a walk, accusations fly everywhere encouraged by sly Cyrus who knows what happened on the solitary beach.

The concept that the masks people wear in relationships change when the dynamics between individuals alter which can be caused by an outside party is proven in this tale. The storyline is fascinating though the action is limited and the key characters never seem fully developed. Relationship drama fans will appreciate the hypothesis driven plot that unmasks visage armor, but fails to go deep into the psyche of the island visitors or even Cyrus.

Harriet Klausner