Reviews

In this strongly atmospheric novel, two couples' lives are brought together by Oona, a psychic they have come to because of troubling visions or apparitions. Each couple has been married a long time while harboring horrifying secrets. One couple is haunted by the death of a child long ago, another by the ghost of the wife's father, apparently come back to tell her that her husband is a killer. Oona's cryptic visions set powerful forces in motion, leading to murder and suicide, while yet not liberating Oona from the pain of knowing intimately the sins and sufferings of strangers. This compelling novel overcomes any initial skepticism about psi powers and sucks the reader right in. Oona especially is a fascinating and complex character. All public libraries will want this book.‘Marylaine Block, St. Ambrose Univ. Lib., Davenport, Iowa

Everyone seems to be chased by the dead in Tessier's (Secret Strangers) eighth novel, already published to critical acclaim in the U.K. In this atmospheric tale, a young Connecticut psychic draws two couples together, dramatically changing their lives and her own. Oona Muir has visionary trances that involve self-laceration, bleeding and fits. Expressing her visions in the disjointed, imagistic language of traditional prophecy, she convinces a few believers but lets more skeptical acquaintances scoff‘until she hints at their own dark secrets. Her powers attract a sex-murderer who wants her as his accomplice and, in order to get to Oona, seduces her unwitting guardian half-sister. The other couple, Charley and Jan, are forced into a confrontation with the truth about their deceased infant daughter that has shocking repercussions. It's not easy to write an effective ghost story these days, but Tessier has managed it with literary flair. (Feb.)