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Child of a Rainless Year
Art teacher Mira Fenn's life was curiously lacking in color until the day she learned of a mysterious inheritance from her birthmother--a long-abandoned house in New Mexico. Dim childhood memories begin to brighten in Mira's mind--her colorfully exotic mother, the curiously silent women who were her mother's servants.
Returning to New Mexico, Mira discovers that the house is a faded thing, looked after by the charismatic Domingo Navidad. But when Mira dreams of her childhood home, it is a riot of color--and she and Domingo soon set to work to bring her dreams to life.
Color brings more than just an old house back to life. The bright paint Mira applies to wood and plaster seems to reach into her soul, to awaken powers trapped in a decades-long slumber. The silent women reappear, carrying with them a great secret. Convinced her mother is still alive, Mira searches for her, journeying through a sea of light and color to a time and place far from her own.
Who and what she finds there will alter her world forever.
Returning to New Mexico, Mira discovers that the house is a faded thing, looked after by the charismatic Domingo Navidad. But when Mira dreams of her childhood home, it is a riot of color--and she and Domingo soon set to work to bring her dreams to life.
Color brings more than just an old house back to life. The bright paint Mira applies to wood and plaster seems to reach into her soul, to awaken powers trapped in a decades-long slumber. The silent women reappear, carrying with them a great secret. Convinced her mother is still alive, Mira searches for her, journeying through a sea of light and color to a time and place far from her own.
Who and what she finds there will alter her world forever.
451 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
11 people are currently reading
441 people want to read
About the author
Jane Lindskold
128 books654 followersJane Lindskold is the author of more than twenty published novels, including the eight volume Firekeeper Saga (beginning with Through Wolf’s Eyes), Child of a Rainless Year (a contemporary fantasy set in Las Vegas, New Mexico), and The Buried Pyramid (an archeological adventure fantasy set in 1880's Egypt).
Lindskold is also the author of the “Breaking the Wall” series, which begins with Thirteen Orphans, then continues in Nine Gates and Five Odd Honors. Her most recent series begins with Artemis Awakening, released in May of 2014. Lindskold has also had published over sixty short stories and numerous works of non-fiction, including a critical biography of Roger Zelazny, and articles on Yeats and Synge.
She has collaborated with several other SF/F writers, including Roger Zelazny, for whom, at his request, she posthumously finished his novels Donnerjack and Lord Demon. She has also collaborated with David Weber, writing several novellas and two YA novels set in his popular ”Honorverse.” She wrote the short story “Servant of Death” with Fred Saberhagen.
Charles de Lint, reviewing Changer, praised "Lindskold's ability to tell a fast-paced, contemporary story that still carries the weight and style of old mythological story cycles."[1] Terri Windling called Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls "a complex, utterly original work of speculative fiction." DeLint has also stated that “Jane Lindskold is one of those hidden treasures of American letters; a true gem of a writer who simply gets better with each book.”
Lindskold was born in 1962 at the Columbia Hospital for Women, the first of four siblings and grew up in Washington, D.C. and Chesapeake Bay. Lindskold's father was head of the Land and Natural Resources Division, Western Division of the United States Justice Department and her mother was also an attorney. She studied at Fordham, where she received a Ph. D. in English, concentrating on Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern British Literature; she successfully defended her Ph.D. on her 26th birthday.
Lindskold lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband, archaeologist Jim Moore.
Lindskold is also the author of the “Breaking the Wall” series, which begins with Thirteen Orphans, then continues in Nine Gates and Five Odd Honors. Her most recent series begins with Artemis Awakening, released in May of 2014. Lindskold has also had published over sixty short stories and numerous works of non-fiction, including a critical biography of Roger Zelazny, and articles on Yeats and Synge.
She has collaborated with several other SF/F writers, including Roger Zelazny, for whom, at his request, she posthumously finished his novels Donnerjack and Lord Demon. She has also collaborated with David Weber, writing several novellas and two YA novels set in his popular ”Honorverse.” She wrote the short story “Servant of Death” with Fred Saberhagen.
Charles de Lint, reviewing Changer, praised "Lindskold's ability to tell a fast-paced, contemporary story that still carries the weight and style of old mythological story cycles."[1] Terri Windling called Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls "a complex, utterly original work of speculative fiction." DeLint has also stated that “Jane Lindskold is one of those hidden treasures of American letters; a true gem of a writer who simply gets better with each book.”
Lindskold was born in 1962 at the Columbia Hospital for Women, the first of four siblings and grew up in Washington, D.C. and Chesapeake Bay. Lindskold's father was head of the Land and Natural Resources Division, Western Division of the United States Justice Department and her mother was also an attorney. She studied at Fordham, where she received a Ph. D. in English, concentrating on Medieval, Renaissance, and Modern British Literature; she successfully defended her Ph.D. on her 26th birthday.
Lindskold lives in Albuquerque, New Mexico with her husband, archaeologist Jim Moore.
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January 4, 2010
Mira Bogatyr Fenn is fifty-one and unfulfilled, having sublimated her artistic talents for reasons she doesn't quite understand. Her adoptive parents pass away, and Mira finds herself drawn to the Victorian house she inherited from her long-missing birth mother, and realizes there's more to her mother's disappearance than she ever suspected as a child.
In Child of a Rainless Year, Jane Lindskold leads the reader into the mystery slowly, letting the weirdness accumulate until Mira can no longer deny it, which is a different technique than what I've seen in a lot of "urban fantasy" novels. It's more usual to drop a mundane character right smack into a supernatural event and go from there; here, it's a more gradual realization. And it works very well indeed.
Lindskold's prose is beautiful, and the setting vividly painted.
It was also refreshing to see an older heroine. Not to mention a heroine who's plump and doesn't miraculously lose weight as part of her character development.
Read this and other Jane Lindskold reviews at Fantasy Literature!
In Child of a Rainless Year, Jane Lindskold leads the reader into the mystery slowly, letting the weirdness accumulate until Mira can no longer deny it, which is a different technique than what I've seen in a lot of "urban fantasy" novels. It's more usual to drop a mundane character right smack into a supernatural event and go from there; here, it's a more gradual realization. And it works very well indeed.
Lindskold's prose is beautiful, and the setting vividly painted.
It was also refreshing to see an older heroine. Not to mention a heroine who's plump and doesn't miraculously lose weight as part of her character development.
Read this and other Jane Lindskold reviews at Fantasy Literature!
May 26, 2011
Why I Chose This Book
I was at the library with two kids who were getting restless/excited about the Magic School bus and I couldn’t stray too far away from the children’s section. That put me in front of the rotating wire baskets of sci-fi paperbacks. I grabbed a fat one with a pretty cover and an interesting title, and an intriguing back-cover description.
Nutshell Review of the Book
Pretty cover, interesting title, intriguing premise. Poor pacing, lots of info dumping, and a second half that completely fizzles.
Detailed Review of the Book
Here are some words I never want to see in a book again:
liminal space
mandala
scrying
false-bottomed drawer
teleidoscope
This book had a lot going for it. There is a (sadly too rare) middle aged female protagonist in a book that is not a love story, a beautiful New Mexico setting, two main characters who are working artists, a household full of ghost servants, a mysterious family legacy, and an unsolved, decades-old disappearance. For a long time, all these things hold together, and a huge portion of the middle of the book is very much a page-turner–thanks to the plot. There’s this house in New Mexico, you see, that Mira Fenn (the protagonist) lived in as a child but has not been back to for forty years. The house is amazing, and probably the most well-developed character of the few who really get, well, screen time. Mira is described more than once as an artist, but you never really believe it. Domingo Navidad is a far more believable artist and actually a realistically drawn character, but he’s really just filling the role of Mystical Negro (although he is Mexican-American). Aunt May we interact with mostly when Mira is reading Aunt May’s journals, and she’s clearly the the voice of the author. I tend not to mind journals as a plot device to provide the protagonist with information that is otherwise unavailable, but these journals did not feel like journals, and they were full of too many little asides about how unfair and sexist life is in the 1960s. Mikey Hart is just a walking Scooby-Doo Ending–he shows up, explains everything, and ta da! Story’s over.
It takes an inordinately long amount of time to get to good part of the story (it starts when Mira is a small child, and kills time until she’s nine and the disappearance happens, and then kills more time until she’s 21 and inherits some property that she forgets about, and then kills more time until she’s 50, and then kills more time until she decides to go to the house in New Mexico, and THEN you’re hooked). There are some parts where you just flip through pages two at a time (a particularly long example is when Domingo and Mira are on a hike and he is explaining all the mystical history of every single local attraction via lecture; it’s supposed to be foreshadowing but whatever), but there are also some parts where you get to chat with the fabulous Pablita Angel, and so the book really builds in tension and you really, really can’t wait to find out. Then, after Mira marinates some chicken and makes a pasta salad with vegetables from the garden that Domingo has been tending for all these years and invites Mikey Hart to dinner so he can spend the rest of the book jamming information down the reader’s throat. And there’s a lot of rest of the book left.
I almost didn’t finish, but I flipped through until I learned what happened. It was a really cool resolution to the story. The whole plot was really cool. It was a great premise through and through. Despite my ramblings to the contrary, I didn’t hate the book. Plus, lots of people love it. Chances are very high that I’d look for another book by this author. But holy crap the main character better have a different wardrobe. Even ankle-length denim skirts would be an improvement.
I was at the library with two kids who were getting restless/excited about the Magic School bus and I couldn’t stray too far away from the children’s section. That put me in front of the rotating wire baskets of sci-fi paperbacks. I grabbed a fat one with a pretty cover and an interesting title, and an intriguing back-cover description.
Nutshell Review of the Book
Pretty cover, interesting title, intriguing premise. Poor pacing, lots of info dumping, and a second half that completely fizzles.
Detailed Review of the Book
Here are some words I never want to see in a book again:
liminal space
mandala
scrying
false-bottomed drawer
teleidoscope
This book had a lot going for it. There is a (sadly too rare) middle aged female protagonist in a book that is not a love story, a beautiful New Mexico setting, two main characters who are working artists, a household full of ghost servants, a mysterious family legacy, and an unsolved, decades-old disappearance. For a long time, all these things hold together, and a huge portion of the middle of the book is very much a page-turner–thanks to the plot. There’s this house in New Mexico, you see, that Mira Fenn (the protagonist) lived in as a child but has not been back to for forty years. The house is amazing, and probably the most well-developed character of the few who really get, well, screen time. Mira is described more than once as an artist, but you never really believe it. Domingo Navidad is a far more believable artist and actually a realistically drawn character, but he’s really just filling the role of Mystical Negro (although he is Mexican-American). Aunt May we interact with mostly when Mira is reading Aunt May’s journals, and she’s clearly the the voice of the author. I tend not to mind journals as a plot device to provide the protagonist with information that is otherwise unavailable, but these journals did not feel like journals, and they were full of too many little asides about how unfair and sexist life is in the 1960s. Mikey Hart is just a walking Scooby-Doo Ending–he shows up, explains everything, and ta da! Story’s over.
It takes an inordinately long amount of time to get to good part of the story (it starts when Mira is a small child, and kills time until she’s nine and the disappearance happens, and then kills more time until she’s 21 and inherits some property that she forgets about, and then kills more time until she’s 50, and then kills more time until she decides to go to the house in New Mexico, and THEN you’re hooked). There are some parts where you just flip through pages two at a time (a particularly long example is when Domingo and Mira are on a hike and he is explaining all the mystical history of every single local attraction via lecture; it’s supposed to be foreshadowing but whatever), but there are also some parts where you get to chat with the fabulous Pablita Angel, and so the book really builds in tension and you really, really can’t wait to find out. Then, after Mira marinates some chicken and makes a pasta salad with vegetables from the garden that Domingo has been tending for all these years and invites Mikey Hart to dinner so he can spend the rest of the book jamming information down the reader’s throat. And there’s a lot of rest of the book left.
I almost didn’t finish, but I flipped through until I learned what happened. It was a really cool resolution to the story. The whole plot was really cool. It was a great premise through and through. Despite my ramblings to the contrary, I didn’t hate the book. Plus, lots of people love it. Chances are very high that I’d look for another book by this author. But holy crap the main character better have a different wardrobe. Even ankle-length denim skirts would be an improvement.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 17, 2017
I love this book. It's magical realism, a favorite style with me. And it's a story of a middle-aged woman who has lived an ordinary life, but now must come to terms with her strange inheritance and unusual gifts. In so many fantasies, the hero is young, perhaps because publishers think that only young people read fantasy. I've been reading it all my life, and am happy when the heroine is someone more like me.
The book is also about a house, a house with history and opinions, although both of those emerge slowly, as in a good mystery. And it's about finding love late in life--both romantic love, and a sense of one's own purpose.
I’ve also read the first two of Lindskold’s Firekeeper series, now at number 6. It’s straight fantasy, about a woman raised as a wolf, who has to learn to be human and manage the politics and wars of humans.
But book series are like television series—there’s a point where I give up. Sometimes the premise wears out; that is, the idea is only good for so many books or shows. Sometimes the author wears out, repeating the same tropes and images. And sometimes I wear out—a few are fun, then I want something new.
I wondered where Child of a Rainless Year came from, because it’s so different from Lindskold’s other work. Here’s what she has to say about it:
http://www.janelindskold.com/about-ra...
“I have always loved in between places - alleys, dry stream beds, median strips - all those places that are neither here nor there. . . . Child of a Rainless Year is a novel about those spaces in between. It is about the dichotomy between expectation and reality, about past and present, about parents and children, mothers and daughters, loving and the fear of love. Color weaves through these contradictions, not so much pulling them together as highlighting differences and similarities. Historical events prove to be as important as current events, and even a house has opinions on how things should be done.”
I’m one of those people who re-reads books that I love. I’ve now read Child of a Rainless Year several times. It doesn’t wear out.
The book is also about a house, a house with history and opinions, although both of those emerge slowly, as in a good mystery. And it's about finding love late in life--both romantic love, and a sense of one's own purpose.
I’ve also read the first two of Lindskold’s Firekeeper series, now at number 6. It’s straight fantasy, about a woman raised as a wolf, who has to learn to be human and manage the politics and wars of humans.
But book series are like television series—there’s a point where I give up. Sometimes the premise wears out; that is, the idea is only good for so many books or shows. Sometimes the author wears out, repeating the same tropes and images. And sometimes I wear out—a few are fun, then I want something new.
I wondered where Child of a Rainless Year came from, because it’s so different from Lindskold’s other work. Here’s what she has to say about it:
http://www.janelindskold.com/about-ra...
“I have always loved in between places - alleys, dry stream beds, median strips - all those places that are neither here nor there. . . . Child of a Rainless Year is a novel about those spaces in between. It is about the dichotomy between expectation and reality, about past and present, about parents and children, mothers and daughters, loving and the fear of love. Color weaves through these contradictions, not so much pulling them together as highlighting differences and similarities. Historical events prove to be as important as current events, and even a house has opinions on how things should be done.”
I’m one of those people who re-reads books that I love. I’ve now read Child of a Rainless Year several times. It doesn’t wear out.
August 1, 2020
A quiet favorite of mine.
Mira a 50-something art-teacher in Ohio is mourning the death of her adoptive parents. While bringing their affairs in order she learns her adoptive mother has left a series of journals dedicated to her and her mysterious past. More shocking is that she learns she still owns her childhood home. A strange and mysterious house she left when her birth-mother vanished from one moment onto another when she was 9 years old... now curious of her past and what is left she travels back to where her own story began. Las Vegas, New Mexico and Phinias House.
A intriguing mystery that takes the time to tell itself. Mira is a pleasant protagonist and she works well with the softly mysterious feel of the story. Slowly Mira and the reader both delve into the history of her childhood home as well as the people who lived there. The enigmatic figure of her mother (See the cover) has kept with me for a long time and now provided a interest in rereading one of my favorite novels.
In all likelihood I'll be returning to this novel some time in the future of the third time.
Mira a 50-something art-teacher in Ohio is mourning the death of her adoptive parents. While bringing their affairs in order she learns her adoptive mother has left a series of journals dedicated to her and her mysterious past. More shocking is that she learns she still owns her childhood home. A strange and mysterious house she left when her birth-mother vanished from one moment onto another when she was 9 years old... now curious of her past and what is left she travels back to where her own story began. Las Vegas, New Mexico and Phinias House.
A intriguing mystery that takes the time to tell itself. Mira is a pleasant protagonist and she works well with the softly mysterious feel of the story. Slowly Mira and the reader both delve into the history of her childhood home as well as the people who lived there. The enigmatic figure of her mother (See the cover) has kept with me for a long time and now provided a interest in rereading one of my favorite novels.
In all likelihood I'll be returning to this novel some time in the future of the third time.
April 1, 2011
This book started off with a bang and really grabbed me. Itbegins with a 9 year old girl living in Las Vegas, New Mexico. Her mother disappears and she is brought to Ohio to live with foster parents under mysterious circumstances. When the story was about her childhood and teenage years it was interesting but once she was in her 50's and went back to Las Vegas to find out what happened to her mother it got very strange.
The book just dragged for about 200 pages. The best parts were the beginning and the end.
The book just dragged for about 200 pages. The best parts were the beginning and the end.
February 27, 2019
I was intrigued from the very beginning. It is not a fast read, instead you really follow Mira's investigations, wondering and guessing along with her. It appears almost like a ghost story at first - classic haunted house. Silent women ghosting around the house. A secretive and intimidating mother who suddenly disappeared. Mysterious trustees Mira does not know and who hold everything secret. It is not a ghost story, though, and this is what makes this book so unique. Folklore, myths and esoteric practices intertwine into some very original magic.
April 11, 2008
An extremely interesting premise, marred by uneven pacing, clunky dialog, and spotty continuity. The heroine takes an unconscionable amount of time to ask the most basic questions. The character who emerges most clearly is Maybelle Fenn, who's dead.
July 22, 2014
I actually read this book 5 years ago and I still think of it from time to time, which isn't something I can say about most books I've read. There is something about it that lingers with you.
May 15, 2020
Sometimes you just want to re-read a slow story about a middle age woman coming back to rediscover her tragic, magic lost childhood home. Which you previously read two decades ago. And you are all the better for it, because now you relate much more to the protagonist and family and home means something a little different. Am sure my rating is slightly inflated above the quality of the written dialogue, but I'm rating for the experience of re-reading my old tattered paperback during an pandemic isolation, so 5 stars it is, shove it.
September 8, 2019
There are times I finish a book and I feel an absolute sense of loss that never again will I sit and get to read the first page of the book for the very first time. I can reread and I will - but it won't be the same as that first, wonderful, immersive reading experience.
That is how I feel about this book. I'm writing this because reviews are so about plot, but I want books where I lose myself completely in them and this was one of those.
That is how I feel about this book. I'm writing this because reviews are so about plot, but I want books where I lose myself completely in them and this was one of those.
September 4, 2020
I honestly couldn't put this book down. I think I read it in less than 24 hours. Maybe it's because I'm an artist, and lived in the Southwest myself, but this book was so lovely and interesting and I just wanted to find out the mysteries!! The plot twist at the end was something I certainly didn't see coming. And the bits of romance didn't hurt, either. Wonderful book!
April 3, 2015
This is an amazing book, one of the few that survived the Great Book Purge of a few years back and still rests on my shelf.
November 12, 2015
Read this book several years ago and thought about it again today. Such a great read!
March 1, 2018
What pure joy and luck to find this book. Much like Mira I followed the liminal lines of good reads and there it was, the perfect book for me, full of new beginnings, old choices, fears and the pure color of life. If you like to read Lois McMaster Bujold or Charles DeLint I believe that you will enjoy this gem. I gave it 5 stars because of the huge smile on my face after reading it and how hard it can be to find a book that strikes the chords of my philosophical heart and mind the way that this one does. And dang if I didn't enjoy the main characters being the sunset side of middle aged. Plus they saved the pony; Life is good.
July 8, 2025
This was a deliciously twisting, mysterious book about a magical house, mirrors, and a mysteriously vanished mother. I loved how bizarre it got, and how you were slowly drawn along from solid reality into the liminal strangeness of the house and the mystery, so that the bits that were magical felt real. That was very well done.
My quibble is that I felt the opening few chapters of backstory were clunkily written, the focus on color coming across as twee. But once she gets to the house and settles into the story proper, things unfurl in a much more satisfactory way, and color has a deep and mythic purpose.
My quibble is that I felt the opening few chapters of backstory were clunkily written, the focus on color coming across as twee. But once she gets to the house and settles into the story proper, things unfurl in a much more satisfactory way, and color has a deep and mythic purpose.
May 31, 2019
A marvelous piece of magical realism. The characters, (especially protagonist Mira Fenn) are all believable, and most of them are likeable. The fantasy aspects are obviously well thought out, and make sense in the story. No idiot balls being passed, no plot holes, no out of character moments, just plenty of good storytelling and characterization, with a dash of trivia to flavor it.
This might be Lindskold's best work.
This might be Lindskold's best work.
June 27, 2019
Child of a Rainless Year reads a bit like an Isabel Allende novel. It is a bit slow in parts but ultimately fulfilling. The story follows a young girl whose mother disappeared and is raised by foster parents. A mystery surrounds her off biological mother's disappearance, and upon her foster parents' death, she begins to explore her past, returning to the house she grew up in and the shadows that remain there.
January 24, 2021
One of those wunderfully smooth reading books, a whole world within a world that is just so effortlessly built that you fall into it and don't want to climb back out.
Oddly I think of this book whenever I find a pair of perfectly fit underwear.
Oddly I think of this book whenever I find a pair of perfectly fit underwear.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
August 2, 2024
I'm not used to this slow type of pacing, but it worked in this book. I may have given up early if I didn't know that I liked the author. The magic was unique, and it was fun to have an older woman as the lead character.
July 5, 2018
Loved the premise and the characters, but she goes a bit into “tell, don’t show” about 2/3 of the way through.
April 23, 2020
Fiftyish art teacher inherits a house in New Mexico from her birth mother. In bonding with the house, she finds she can control liminal space. A superb fantasy, and an all-time favorite of mine.
November 23, 2021
Just re-read this again and it holds up beautifully. Love a mature heroine on a journey to discovery.
July 15, 2009
It's hard to believe that it took me so long to come across it, but Jane Lindskold's Child of a Rainless Year is the best new book I've read in a long time. I'd read some of her short stories here and there, but none of her novels had jumped out at me from the bookshelf until now.
I'm struggling to put into words exactly what it is that makes the book such a great read. A good part of it is the pacing, I think, as well as just the right balance (for me, at least) between between description and action, and between language and story. This may just be me, but with most fiction out there, I usually feel that either the language overwhelms the story or the story overpowers the language. This is one of the rare books where they are equally strong, complementing each other rather than fighting for my attention. Most of all, though, it's simply a damn good story.
I guess a brief summary would be that Mira grew up in a house that was very mysterious in many ways (and not in the cliched ways which are no longer mysterious at all), in New Mexico. When she's nine, her mother disappears and she is sent to live with foster parents who are required to move to a new state and change their names as a requirement of the mysterious trustees of her mother's estate. All sorts of things happen, eventually building up to a middle-aged Mira returning to the house she grew up in, which she'd now inherited. She starts trying to understand all of the mysteries that surround her childhood, her mother, the house, her foster parents, and her connection with art and color.
The book pulls together an amazing mix of art, local history and culture, psychology, hidden family secrets, and the paranormal -- and more importantly, all in a way that builds the story, rather than just dumping information here and there because the author had it.
I'm struggling to put into words exactly what it is that makes the book such a great read. A good part of it is the pacing, I think, as well as just the right balance (for me, at least) between between description and action, and between language and story. This may just be me, but with most fiction out there, I usually feel that either the language overwhelms the story or the story overpowers the language. This is one of the rare books where they are equally strong, complementing each other rather than fighting for my attention. Most of all, though, it's simply a damn good story.
I guess a brief summary would be that Mira grew up in a house that was very mysterious in many ways (and not in the cliched ways which are no longer mysterious at all), in New Mexico. When she's nine, her mother disappears and she is sent to live with foster parents who are required to move to a new state and change their names as a requirement of the mysterious trustees of her mother's estate. All sorts of things happen, eventually building up to a middle-aged Mira returning to the house she grew up in, which she'd now inherited. She starts trying to understand all of the mysteries that surround her childhood, her mother, the house, her foster parents, and her connection with art and color.
The book pulls together an amazing mix of art, local history and culture, psychology, hidden family secrets, and the paranormal -- and more importantly, all in a way that builds the story, rather than just dumping information here and there because the author had it.
September 14, 2008
So the good - great to see fantasy that is not tired Celtic mythology rehashed or the annoying current Vampire craze which seems to be 90% of what passes for fantasy these days.
The disappointing - the story was a wee bit of a letdown.
I really have enjoyed other books by Jane Lindskold. I enjoyed this one too, but not as much as some of the others. It pulled me in at first, and I liked Mira. I think it could have been edited down in some parts. I wish we'd seen more through Maybelle's eyes too as I thought her story was interesting. I have to admit, that in my mind's eye, I saw Melissa McCarthy (she played Sookie in Gilmore Girls) as Maybelle. I don't know why, I just saw her as capable of being that character!
In the end I was frustrated a bit as I thought it wrapped up rather too neatly and I felt it sort of died out rather than went somewhere interesting. I somehow wanted something else, although I can't say what that is. I suspect part of my frustration lies with Colette. Everyone else, including Stan felt 3-dimensional to me and Colette was an enigma. Why did she, who is the lynch pin of the story have to be so narrow. There was great potential in the possibilities around Colette/Mira that were merely passed by that could have made this mind-bogglingly good instead of merely good. Ah, it's so easy for a reader to edit though, isn't it?
The disappointing - the story was a wee bit of a letdown.
I really have enjoyed other books by Jane Lindskold. I enjoyed this one too, but not as much as some of the others. It pulled me in at first, and I liked Mira. I think it could have been edited down in some parts. I wish we'd seen more through Maybelle's eyes too as I thought her story was interesting. I have to admit, that in my mind's eye, I saw Melissa McCarthy (she played Sookie in Gilmore Girls) as Maybelle. I don't know why, I just saw her as capable of being that character!
In the end I was frustrated a bit as I thought it wrapped up rather too neatly and I felt it sort of died out rather than went somewhere interesting. I somehow wanted something else, although I can't say what that is. I suspect part of my frustration lies with Colette. Everyone else, including Stan felt 3-dimensional to me and Colette was an enigma. Why did she, who is the lynch pin of the story have to be so narrow. There was great potential in the possibilities around Colette/Mira that were merely passed by that could have made this mind-bogglingly good instead of merely good. Ah, it's so easy for a reader to edit though, isn't it?
February 26, 2008
I first saw this book at Queen Anne Books the day I went there to buy “Through the children’s gate”. I already had three books picked out so I didn’t buy this one; I wouldn’t have regretted it if I had. This one I read while I was home sick, and it drew me in so much that I think I read it in one day. The story is told in the first person, which I don’t often like, but I was drawn in immediately. This is a fantasy book – there’s magic in it, centered around an old house in a small town in New Mexico, but there is nothing fantastical about the narrator – a stocky, sensible middle aged woman – and because of the... solidity... of the narrator, the magic when it shows up is entirely believable, at least to those of us who are able to suspend disbelief about silent women who appear as manifestations of the goodwill of the house towards its occupant. The book appears to be a single title, not part of a series, and really, I couldn’t see how this could be extended into a series, as the heart of the story is the relationship between the narrator and her mother. But I liked this enough that I will try to find other titles by this author, in hopes that the magic of her writing is found in other books as well.
February 16, 2017
This was well written. The story was engaging and I appreciated how Jane incorporated color into the story. I really had a hard time putting the book down.
January 5, 2016
Although the pacing is too slow in the beginning, and much to fast towards the end, this book still captured and held my interest. Written from the perspective of a recently orphaned 50-year old woman, the story follows her journey back home to Las Vegas, New Mexico, and what she finds utterly shakes her entire perception of herself - and reality. An interesting take on a magical story from the perspective of someone other than a headstrong teen, this book offers a deeper and more layered experience. As you start to notice the cracks in space, the story begins to knit itself together. However, the denouement felt too tidy and simple. Another twist at the end would not have been unwelcome in a story as straightforward as this one. Still, the book is filled with magic, mystery, and just a touch of romance. Definitely worth a read if the recent slew of teen paranormal novels have left you with a bad taste in your mouth.
September 25, 2015
Okay, perhaps this should be 4 or 4.5 stars. But how often do you come across a great fantasy where the protagonist is an intelligent older woman? And when you do, how common is it for the book to focus on the protagonist and how she evolves rather than inserting gratuitous sex so that it can be called an adult novel? So far, I have not run across any other book which does this. In addition, the fantasy portion of the book is seamlessly integrated into the "real" world. Science Fiction has several female protagonists, but unfortunately one can probably count on one hand the fantasy novels that have this. This book should be cherished for that reason alone.
Anyway, this is what I would call a true adult novel. Yes, a teen might read it and enjoy it, but it makes more sense if you've been there.
It makes me want to go and live in Las Vegas, New Mexico. I know that others have already included spoilers, so I need go no further.
Anyway, this is what I would call a true adult novel. Yes, a teen might read it and enjoy it, but it makes more sense if you've been there.
It makes me want to go and live in Las Vegas, New Mexico. I know that others have already included spoilers, so I need go no further.
June 30, 2009
I liked the inclusion of the ideas about liminal space in the magic system of the book, but there were a few loose ends in the plot that are bugging me. Also, the author's research was clearly extensive - but perhaps the readers didn't need as much of it as was included. After a point, I was tempted to just skip the chunks of information in search of the plot.
I was irritated by Mira; her internal dialogue sometimes seems out of character for her backstory/apparent maturity at other times. I didn't feel like the climax was very exciting, though that may be more a function of the story itself. It's less of a breathless chase narrative than an introspective story of discovering and creating identity. Not bad, but not my favorite of hers.
I was irritated by Mira; her internal dialogue sometimes seems out of character for her backstory/apparent maturity at other times. I didn't feel like the climax was very exciting, though that may be more a function of the story itself. It's less of a breathless chase narrative than an introspective story of discovering and creating identity. Not bad, but not my favorite of hers.
June 21, 2012
Jane Lindskold deals with liminalities. For me so many things fall in those in between spaces. Lindsold brings the beauty out in all those in between spaces. The woman who is not yet old, but no longer young. The house that is falling apart but not yet condemmed. hte land that is not Santa Fe, but not Albuquerque. [return][return][return]Lindskold writes the characters to make them real, to make them flawed but never ugly. The landscape is beutiful, the house is beautiful. She captures what it means to live in a land where water is part of every decision, and yet is not spoken of. She captures so many things and wraps it all up with a tale that I hold in my heart like those fairy tales I learned as a child.
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