Candles Burning
Tabitha King and Michael McDowell
Berkley, Jun 2006, $24.95
ISBN: 0425210286

In the 1950s Roberta Ann Dakin nee Carroll comes from an old aristocratic family so when she married car dealership mogul Joe Caine Dakin everyone assumed it was for his money; they would be right as Roberta Ann disdains her spouse's roots. More upsetting to the proper Roberta Ann is their seven years old daughter Calley. She detests her child who behaves like a low life Dakin rather than an upper crust Carroll. Unbeknownst to her sarcastic mother, Calley has inherited one thing from her Carroll ancestry, the ability to hear the dead speak, and a talent that her mom never gained.

Two women abduct, kill, and dismember Joe Caine with no known motive for the violence as they kidnapped him for ransom money. A shocked Roberta Ann accompanied by a grieving Calley who loved her daddy, flee their Alabama home for Pensacola. However, neither understands that someone in their new residence, so reminiscent of Roberta Ann's memories of her deceased great-grandma's house, has arranged it all starting with the vicious homicide and the relocation. That individual wants to own Calley's paranormal power, but that essence failed to understand the love between a daughter and a father; a reckoning is coming.

CANDLES BURNING is a superb paranormal gothic thriller that grips readers from start to finish as the audience will ponder whether the villain or the child will triumph. For Calley to win she must learn how to use her skills in spite of her loathing mother; her incentive is her late father. Tabitha King completes the late Michael McDowell's tale so that no one will be able to ascertain who wrote what nor care as the growing suspense to an anticipated High Noon showdown is what the audience will appreciate.

Harriet Klausner