Ghosts assistant film director in New York, romantically
Ghosts galore in a Massachusetts village.Sabine Heartwood passed through Moose River Junction years ago with her mother, an itinerant fortuneteller. Raised on the road as Ruby crisscrossed the country in her battered VW minibus, Sabine longed to settle down and was inexplicably drawn to this rural hamlet, where everyone knows everyone. Now that one of the towns favorite sons has returned for his grandmother Beatrices funeral, at least theres something to talk about. Danforth Smith is an up-and-coming assistant film director in New York, romantically linked with a bitchy, beautiful, ambitious actress. Shy Sabine is instantly attracted to him but she knows she cant compete with the likes of Karen. And handsome Dan would never want to give up such a glamorous life to stay in Moose River Junction and care for his aging, mentally retarded uncle Nagy, per his mother Beatrices wish.
Even though Beatrice, imperious and theatrical to a fault, insisted in her will that Nagy never be institutionalized and instead be permitted to take tickets and sweep up at the Palace Theatre (her dead husbands pet project and final legacy). Sabine intuitively senses Dans dark secret, but not its exact details. Yet Dan, given to solitary brooding, reveals all to the reader in interior monologues: he holds himself responsible for the accidental fire that killed his feuding parents when he was only six.
He and Nagy were playing with a lighter, and his grandmother Beatrice always told Dan that the fire was his fault, not Nagys. Hmmso thats why Sabine seems to smell smoke in his presence but she doesnt understand why. Gee, where does this strange knack for reading minds come from? The supposedly psychic young woman cant figure it out, but mother Ruby is waiting in the wings with a grim secret of her own: Sabine is the child of an alcoholic gypsy, who raped Ruby when she was only fifteen. Hence the gift or is it a curse? — of second sight. Then a wealthy local couple ask her to divine the source of troublesome happenings at their renovated farmhouse: could it be an unquiet ghost from three centuries ago? Yes, indeed. The past casts long, dismal shadows upon the future of all who dwell in Moose River and only Sabine can set things right.
Morbid, rather depressing romance from the author of CAMEO LAKE, 2001, and other tales of heartbreak.
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