From our pals at Hyperion comes a book that should satisfy fans of The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane and A Discovery of Witches. It nicely skirts the boundary between the normal and paranormal, which helps drive the suspense in this story of an estranged daughter returning to her family’s generations old home on Lake Superior. Those of us in the Great Lakes region are well acquainted with Ms. Webb; her first book, The Tale of Halcyon Crane, won the 2011 Minnesota Book Award, was named an Indie Next pick, a Midwest Connections pick, a Great Lakes, Great Reads pick, a top 30 summer read for Traverse Magazine, and a finalist for Michigan Notable Books. In this one Webb builds on a winning formula with a fast-paced, suspenseful read loaded with twists, turns and shocking revelations. The many fans of The Tale of Halcyon Crane will welcome her second Great Lakes ghost story.
Publisher’s Weekly does a nice plot summary: “[A] legendary curse…haunts the powerful Alban family’s mansion by Lake Superior. When divorced mother Grace Alban returns to the mansion after her mother’s death, she finds letters revealing her mother’s affair with famous writer David Coleville, who committed suicide during the same 1956 solstice party from which Grace’s aunt, Fate Alban, disappeared. While searching for a lost Coleville novel she believes will clarify the past, Grace is imperiled by the mansion’s malevolent presences, an obsessed journalist and an emotionally disturbed woman who may be Fate.”
The Fate of Mercy Alban (9781401341930) by Wendy Webb. $15.99 trade paper original. 2/5/13 on sale.
Advance Readers Edition 