Firefly Cloak: A Novel

by Sheri Reynolds

When eight-year-old Tessa Lee and her brother, Travis, are abandoned in a campground by their desperate mother and her boyfriend of the moment, they are left with only two a phone number written in Magic Marker on Travis’s back and their mother’s favorite housecoat, which she leaves wrapped around her sleeping children. This housecoat, painted with tiny fireflies, becomes totemic for Tessa Lee, providing a connection to her past and to the beautiful mother she lost.

Seven years later, when word arrives that her mother has been spotted working at a tourist trap on a seaside boardwalk not far from where Tessa Lee lives, she sets off on a dangerous journey to try to recover what has been taken from her.

Steeped in the rich Southern atmosphere for which Sheri Reynolds has long been hailed, Firefly Cloak is a vivid coming-of-age novel of family, loss, and redemption.

Also available as a Random House Large Print edition and as an eBook

Genres: Fiction, Audiobook, Young Adult, Coming Of Age, Contemporary, Southern, Adult

304 pages, Hardcover

First published April 6, 2006

About the author

Sheri Reynolds is an author of contemporary Southern fiction.

Sheri Reynolds was born and raised in rural South Carolina. She graduated from Conway High School in 1985, Davidson College in 1989, and Virginia Commonwealth University in 1992.

Her published novels include Bitterroot Landing, The Rapture of Canaan (an Oprah book club selection and New York Times bestseller), A Gracious Plenty (98), Firefly Cloak (06), The Sweet In-Between (08), and The Homespun Wisdom of Myrtle T. Cribb (12) and The Tender Grave (21). Her first play, Orabelle's Wheelbarrow, won the Women Playwrights' Initiative playwriting competition for 2005.

Also Professor of English and the Ruth and Perry Morgan Chair of Southern Literature at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, VA, Sheri teaches creative writing and literature classes. She won the Outstanding Faculty Award from the State Council for Higher Education of Virginia in 2003. In 2005, she received a grant from the Virginia Commission for the Arts in playwriting. She has also taught at Virginia Commonwealth University, The College of William and Mary, and Davidson College.

Sheri lives in the town of Cape Charles on Virginia's Eastern Shore.

Reviews

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

I spent a significant portion of this book trying to figure out how old Tessa Lee was (16), where exactly the book was set (North Carolina) and when the story was taking place. Tessa Lee was so innocent and naive for her age I honestly thought this story was taking place in at least the 1960s or 1970s until the mention of a cell phone popped up. This book just didn't do it for me, and I really couldn't wait for it to be over.

[Jess Van Dyne-Evans · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the second or third Sheri Reynolds book I've written and I still love her spare and beautiful ways of describing things. She can take even the most unredeemable minor character and make you wildly interested in them for a page or two.

That said, this was darker than her other books - full of sexual references and drug-use. The mother was so screwed up I (frankly) kept waiting for her to die (which does not bode well for her likability or her place in the plot) and the daughter was so confused I couldn't really see how she be as functional as she was.

Still, worth reading. Crafted well.

[Tara · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a gem. More for book clubs or a fun english class. The premise is what pulls you. Mom abandons her 2 children at a campground to run off with some random guy. People find the little boy walking around in a diaper with a phone number in permanent marker on his back. The story unfolds very smoothly bit by bit and follows the path of the elder child Tessa Lee, Lil the grandmother the who took them in and Sheila the mother who left them. A story of growth and redemption. No surprising twists or major dramas but well written. Interesting perspective from the life of a drug addict.

[Chanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good book - Couldn't put it down. Quick, easy read. Sad, the crazy lives some people live. For some reason, I kept picturing the main character as a young girl, 8 or 10 years old, even though she's 16. I just couldn't get the image out of my head. Also kept picturing the story as taking place 50 or 60 years ago, even though it is supposed to be current day. I got over that by the end, but just had this concrete picture in my mind. I think I was picturing a similar scene to The Secret Life of Bees.

[Carin · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was okay. A couple of the characters (Rash, and the Grandmother) were pretty compelling but large swaths of the storyline felt pointless. A lot of plot threads were dropped, symbols (aside from the titular Fireflies) were introduced and lost. The ending was a long time coming. It was a fast read, the place adn the situations felt real, but there was no passion behind the writing. It seemed like the author was just going through the motions. It was very disappointing, after Rapture of Canaan. I hope I'm not judging it overly harshly because of high expectations. It wasn't bad, but it was uneventful, despite a lot of events.

[Soren · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book made me long for community. Some of the characters live in a trailer-park like place called a "Mobile City", which seems to have everything - ponds, a rec center, woods, etc. It sounded so awesome to me that I wanted to live there.

I'm no reviewer. I liked this. It's written in a kind of style that is really spare, but evocative. There are a lot of metaphors for how people are acting or thinking which seem bizarre but are PERFECT describers.

[Annie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sheri Reynolds is by far one of my favorite authors, her ability to seemlessly weave past and present and a seemingly small story into a novel that calls to you when it is put down is her trademark. This one in particular is the story of a little girl who seeks out the mother who left her behind. Painful and beautiful with gorgeous vivid language... all my favorite things. Great story!

[Laurie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one. Wonderful story of loss, acceptance and forgiveness. The main character is Tessa Lee a young girl who is abandoned by her alcoholic mother and boyfriend at a campground along with her baby brother. It was definitely a worthwhile read.

[treehugger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Can't say anything about this book that hasn't already been said. Just kept wishing it would end. Sometimes her language caught me off guard and seemed out of place - now I cuss like a drunken sailor, but some of the descriptions in Sheila's head were downright yucky.

It made me feel a little bit crazy while I was listening to it, like no one in the world (certainly no one in the book) was even the least bit sane, and they were taking me with them. It might also have been the narrator's voice - it was overly-southern and sounded like a young girl, maybe 14 (which is probably why the swearing seemed so strange..


And TessaLee did NOT act like a teenager. She just didn't. She was too Pollyanna-meets-the-Brady-Bunch-innocent! Which is why I think some readers could feel like this must have taken place a long time ago, rather than being a contemporary novel, which I think was the author's intention.

[Becky · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'd rather give this 2.5 stars - I am between thinking it was just okay and thinking I kinda liked it. I think I would have liked it more, but was a little disappointed after all the hype. I had heard from a few places that this was great - I even heard a clip of the first chapter and liked it - but I had a little trouble following the story (switches between character perspectives and points on the time line made that a little difficult). I guess it ended up seeming like the story did not really progress. There was the introduction of a few very interesting characters/story plots but there were not followed. It is almost as though this could be the introduction book to a series that explores the lives of these plots/people.

[Cindy (BKind2Books) · Rating 4 out of 5]

On TBR since 2010.
Read for Bookopoly game.

I liked this story, a coming-of-age tale of love and redemption. Tessa Lee and her brother were abandoned by their mother when they were little and have been raised by their grandmother. Years later, Tessa locates her mom and sets out to contact her. The writing is very moving and the imagery is so evocative of the South.

Quotes to remember:

Now that she had legs, what she needed was wings.

...sandspur arrangements are like the antithesis of roses...A way to say 'I love you' that acknowledges the pain in life, not just the beauty.

Like with fireflies...you couldn't account for their mystery, why in some moments they burned and in some moments they went dark.

[Jill · Rating 1 out of 5]

To say I didn't like this book is an understatment. Usually Sheri Reynolds does cool Southern writer things, in the style of say, Flannery O'Conner. In this book, too much is built around sex, strippers, and other bodily function. At least three parts are too far fetched to really fit the story line. And, the exploitation of the children occurs at such a high level that the mother becomes almost entirely unsympathetic, although I think she's intended to be. Even the symbolism falls totally flat. Wish I hadn't wasted my time...

[Susie Sherman · Rating 2 out of 5]

We listened to this on on cd during a recent car trip. I'm not sure if the reason I didn't really like it had more to do with the narrator's accent, or the fact that Tessa Lee seems to be obsessed with her granny dying.
It was a very strange "read" for me. Not something that I would normally choose. The "blurb" on the back didn't really reflect what happened in the book.

Yes, it was a young girl's search for the mother that abandonded her, but I feel like the author was too all over the place in bouncing between the three women in the story and their viewpoints.

[Jamie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the way this story is written. Sections of it read like poetry. The story is about a young girl finding her mother after being abandoned many years earlier. Her mother is a drug addict who only begins to change her life after her encounter with her daughter. While I really enjoyed the book, I didn't connect with any of the characters, and that prevented me from fully immersing myself in the book, like I usually find myself doing.

[Cecelia Hightower]

This book was similar to Ferris Beach (a book I read in February). A mother leaves her young daughter, Tessa lee, and son, Travis, in a campground with their grandmother’s phone number written with a sharpie on the little boys shoulder. Mom struggles with her addictions and both Tessa Lee and her grandmother struggle with their emotional journey through grief, love, and family ties. No big surprises; a few twists and turns.

[Bonnie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I wasn't a big fan of this one. Little to sad and nothing happy about it! The reflection of life is gripping at times and nothing to lead into life's story of the main character. Just wasn't a fan. What kept my interest to finish was to see where it was leading, but wasn't thrilled with the ending either. Don't want to say anything more due to someone reading that might be in the middle of the book.

[Lou Cordero · Rating 3 out of 5]

Story of loss, reconciliation, mother/daughter relationships.

Mother abandons her 2 kids leaving them nothing but a phone number and a cloak. Children are raised by their grandmother. After a family tragedy, the daughter goes in search of her mother ...

A good read for anyone, specially a mother with a daughter.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little girl and her brother are left at a campsite, with nothing but a phone number written in magic marker on his back, and the firefly cloak they were covered with. The story follows the kids through their young lives while they attempt to recover, and eventually find their deserting family.

[Ananda · Rating 2 out of 5]

This was very disappointing. It felt like this was a book that Sheri Reynolds just threw together to fulfill her contract. It had no substance, no twisted twists that you expect from a Sheri Reynolds novel. I would like my $10 back please.

[John Carenen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sheri Reynolds strikes again, this time with the story of an abandoned girl and her little brother, and her quest to find her mother. An array of intriguing characters and a strong story line make this an excellent read, with redemption after all the protagonist's problems.

[Denise · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ms. Reynolds is a master storyteller and brings to life an orphaned girl searching for love and herself. Powerful and brilliantly written.

[Kelly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great coming of age novel. Reynolds has a knack for creating stories that are unique in their family life and characters but making them seem completely plausible.

[Abby McIntire · Rating 1 out of 5]

I really enjoyed The Rapture of Canaan, but found myself just wishing I could finish this book and start something better! Disappointing...

[Liz · Rating 2 out of 5]

There were many great elements to this story but it never came together for me.

[Linda Lpp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting plot. Very interesting troubled family and so called acquaintances. There were many instances I thought how could such situatiòns take place. But the characters were featured with more emphasis on their quirks, than their common characteristics. If that makes sense.
There were many instances when I closed the book up and was ready to add it to the did not finish category. For myself the dreary book lagged in the middle third, but then the remaining story made more sense to me-so was able to finish.
Interesting mention of fireflies throughout the story, and how everything came together in the end.
The book dealt with impacts of alcohol, drugs, and smokes could drag an individual down such that choices made to "get by" can lead to irresponsible, impulsive actions. The story also highlighted personal insecurities on one end of the spectrum, to demonstrations of resourcefullness and perseverance to make the best of circumstances, and maintain bonds with loved ones, and be willing to strive forgiveness/understanding. There were also many instances of reflections to happy times, mourning losses, and perhaps being stronger for it.
Of note: I'm writing this on small cell phone, and can only see one line of what I've mentioned. So please excuse this rambling, likely very disjointed account. I do not know how to scroll back... can anyone help me?

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was one of those books I have a hard time choosing a star rating for. I would say 3 1/2 out of five would be most accurate for how I felt about the book. I thought that the author gives a relatively honest and believable portrayal of an alcoholic/addict mother. She is neither completely demonized or victimized, but more realistically is a bit of both. Of course she made choices along the way, and she also met some bad luck and bad people along the way as well.

I also liked how the book didn't wrap everything up into a neat package for an ending, but also didn't leave me feeling like it was a horrible cliffhanger that I felt unsatisfied with. I think that was a wonderful way for the author to handle topics such as the book handles. The teenage girl's problems will not all be solved in just a snippet of her life, and the same is true of her mother and grandmother. It was interesting to have a three generational perspective on their intertwined lives. I think that the teenage daughter, Tessa Lee, commanded the most attention in the book, but the addition of her mother's and grandmother's perspective enriched the novel in a way that would not have happened with only a single perspective could have.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not my favorite book by Sheri Reynolds, but well narrated & thought provoking.
I was sometimes confused about the timeline in this story.
I would not know if I was hearing the mother, daughter or granddaughters story.
Sheri Reynolds does such a good job describing the thoughts and emotions of her characters without being drawn out, too flowery or depressing.
He words just make me think and evoke empathy for characters that have made MANY mistakes.
You want to hate the mom who leaves her 2 young children and continues to make even more bad decisions about how she treats herself.
I had the most empathy fir the grandma, Lil.
She had a hard life but had done the best with what she had and given her grandkids a good home.
There didn’t seem a real purpose or hoped for outcome to this story, but it was a well told story if 3 lives that are connected and very different and how you can move forward from loss and bad choices.

[Daren Dean · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sheri Reynolds is a wonderful writer. There's so much I admire about her writing. This novel begins with some arresting images are poetic: a phone number written on the back of a doomed little boy and her mother's "firefly cloak" that is imbued with meaning and resonates throughout the book and Tessa Lee's momma dressed up as a miniature mermaid in a boardwalk sideshow. From a writing perspective, I especially loves how she handles flashbacks so deftly. New information is provided simply as part of a character's natural memory. The characters are moving and seem very real. Even Tessa Lee's grandma who would normally be a flat character had an interesting life worthy of her own book. If you haven't read Sheri Reynolds, I don't think you need to read her work in any particular order but you might read A Gracious Plenty and this one as well.

[Crazy_smiler · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it. I don't know why. But I did. The grandmother had old fashioned thinking as well as racist and yet I still like her. This was a slice of life book. No Hollywood style ending. It just was. I hate open ended books. Ones that don't seem to end. But this one didn't. It just was. So many things I would normally dislike and here I am just accepting it. Oh well. Perhaps it felt real. There isn't always a why. Or info isn't always known. But it is full of coincidences. Some may say a circle about can't be but it happens all the time where I live. Like how lives intertwine, connecting us in several ways.

It does amuse me how much Tessa Lee worries. I'm a worrier but she goes extreme fast.

[Georgetowner · Rating 3 out of 5]

I picked up the audio book in a bag of books from a library sale. The audio production is superbly performed, and in the end I liked the book. Sheri Reynolds is a notable writer; she can turn a phrase to put you just where the character in her novel is. The book switches between the daughter, mother, and grandmothers perspective seamlessly and effectively. It was especially interesting to be inside the head of the mother, a drug addict, while she is tripping and to experience how she gets by in life. I really liked the overall plot and how things progressed in the story. Some of the content is not enjoyable and that kept it from a higher rating for me, though I can't really say it is gratuitous either. I would give it 3.5 stars if that were possible.