After the accident in which her
twin daughters were killed, stained glass artist Andy Ridgemont’s life fell apart.
Now, six months after the tragic incident, she’s still unable to come out of her
grief and the only solace she finds is in her dreams wherein her daughters are always with
her. No medicine in the world is helping and in fact, her migraines seem to be getting
worse. Her only surviving child Alyssa is stricken at how her vital and beautiful young
mother seems to have aged a thousand years in the past six months. Forced to grow up
overnight, a concerned Alyssa is trying to look after her mom as best as any twelve-year
old can. The only thing Alyssa is looking forward to is going to Lambert, Pennsylvania
where her mother grew up and where Meg, Andy’s guardian cum best friend, still lives.
Andy comes out of grief long enough to drive them both to Lambert and on the way, they get
lost and come across a most eerie place, the Collier House which is supposed to be
haunted.
Andy is stunned to see the Collier House for
she’d recently seen it in her dreams! Life in Lambert was the same as it always was.
But Andy is unable to get the haunted house out of her thoughts and dreams. She feels the
house calling to her and when she goes there to explore, she has a unique experience
there. After that, she becomes deeply involved in finding out its history. She finds that
the Collier’s were a happy family of four who all died within a year of each other in
1917-1918. Somehow, in some chilling way, Andy feels that she already knows all this. But
it’s simply not possible for she’d never even seen this house before, let alone
have prior knowledge of its history. What is happening here? Are her medicines causing her
to have hallucinations or is this a message from the beyond?
Jane Shoup has succeeded in crafting a poignant
love story wrapped within a paranormal ambiance. Andy’s grief and devastation and her
inability to cope with it, touch a chord within and are portrayed authentically. Alyssa,
who’s become an adult in a child’s body, is also beautifully portrayed. The
eerie Collier house and the supernatural events which affect Andy there, raise goose bumps
on your skin and make you look over your shoulder. The whole atmosphere is very gothic and
creepy. But the ending makes everything clear and leaves the readers with a feeling of
quiet fulfillment. Overall, very engrossing!
Reviewed By Rashmi Srinivas for The Road to
Romance
March 3, 2003 |
