Ilie RubyRecensioni

This was lovely. It has strains of magical realism with lovely interwoven stories about the characters of a community. Beautiful book.

I live near Canandaigua, so this book was really interesting to me. The charactors are well defined and I enjoyed the mystical quality. There was a good deal of suspense as well.

The Salt God's Daughter by Ilie Ruby follows three generations of women in California. Set mainly in Long Beach, the novel opens in 2001 with Ruthie's daughter, Naida, and then jumps back to 1972 and follows Naida's grandmother, Diana Gold and her two daughters, Ruthie and Dolly, to the present. Diana raises her daughters on the road, living out of her station wagon, based on what she sees in the Old Farmer's Almanac and the phase of the moon. Many of her inventive names for the moon's phases are tailored to fit their situation. The women keep returning to Dr. Brownstein's beach hotel, which later becomes a retirement home, in Long Beach.

The Salt God's Daughter is an atmospheric novel that explores the complex relationship and love between mothers and daughters while portraying the female experience. It is also about being different, a non-conformist to the world and how violence and bullies can influence a person's self esteem. Always present is a tantalizing pull toward the sea or repulsion from it, depending upon the character. There are also several heartbreaking passages where the characters bear painful, life changing experiences.

The Salt God's Daughter is not a light read. This is a multi-layered novel with many complexities woven into the plot. Folklore, magic realism, mysticism, and mythology infuse the whole novel with a dream-like quality. Certainly having a character named Diana following the phases of the moon so closely is no coincidence. (Diana, a huntress, is the Roman goddess of the moon, nature, fertility and childbirth.) And, while the women are Jewish, that fact was simply another tradition that was ultimately tied into all sorts of other belief systems, including Celtic lore.

Ultimately, this is a beautifully written novel that will have many readers turning back to relish a sentence or paragraph again. While admittedly I also had to turn back a few times because I got lost in the mythology (magic realism can trip me up), that didn't deter me from the pure joy I felt in reading such a finely crafted novel. Even though I normally try to avoid magic realism, this novel was the exception to my rule as I enjoyed it immensely.

Very Highly Recommended - one of the best


It is very evident that Ilie Ruby is a painter, as well as an author, in her descriptions of Ruthie painting. She is also the author of the critically-acclaimed novel, The Language of Trees, which debuted in 2010 and was selected as a Target Emerging Author’s Pick and a First Magazine for Women Reader’s Choice.

Disclosure: My copy was courtesy of Spark Point Studio for review purposes.

The seem to be a book that you either loved, or loathed. I actually did both. There were parts of this book that were wonderful, but as a whole, I felt it was too disjointed and painful to read.

It’s told in three parts; the first part is about Ruth’s childhood with her abusive/inspired homeless mother Diana and her sister Dolly. The second part is about Ruth’s adolescence and young motherhood, and includes her romance with a man she dubs the Salt God, who may or may not be a selkie. The third part is about Naida, Ruth’s daughter, and her youth and adolescence. There’s also a prologue and epilogue, which to me only muddled the book, rather than clarifying or tying it together.

The theme, I believe, is that a girl’s first love is her mother; certainly most of the book, including the last third, is about the relationship between mothers and daughters.

What I liked about this:

Mother Diana was obsessed with the phases of the moon, with the almanac, and trying to tie them to what had happened, and what she believed was going to happen, in their lives. She and the almanac called the moon different names: the Hunger Moon, the Wolf Moon, the Harvest Moon, and told stories and myths for how it related to the earth; sometimes it was a sibling, sometimes it was a child, sometimes it was the spouse of the earth.

I like that it was set in local areas to Southern California, and loaded with details. The Belmont Shore area of Long Beach, the Santa Ana winds, the Oxnard strawberry fields, the desert areas, the artfully disguised Long Beach oil derricks, the seals and the bougainvillea. This gave the book a very rich, sensual texture.

There were wonderful details about the time era: the green station wagon that Diana dubbed The Big Ugly, the obsession with soap opera General Hospital, and the theme of Luke and Laura and rape, the elaborations about the toys and the clothes.

I liked the recurring theme of the selkies, magical creatures who are generally seals at sea, but who can remove a magic cloak, and take on human form, on land. Ruth’s lover, Graham, seems to have all the characteristics of a selkie; it seems Ruth both wants to believe he is, and that he is not.

What I didn’t like about this:

The editor(s) should be shot, or at least flogged. There were so many distractions that were not cleaned up, so many doors that were opened that led nowhere, and so many bad grammar and spelling mistakes that totally ripped me out of the story.

For example, there’s a legend that the waterhorse (a legendary sea creature) causes earthquakes deep under the sea, by a shifting of tectonic plates. In the Salt God’s daughter, this is referenced three or four times. Except it’s always spelled as “Teutonic plates.” WTF is a Teutonic plate, and what does German crockery have to do with anything? Somebody serves up brisket in one place, and “briscuit” in another.

Ruth’s apartment at Wild Acres seem to be whatever size you wanted to be. At one point it’s a studio apartment with a Murphy bed (the kind of folds up and down from the wall). Graham wants her to place his tokens under the mattress, which makes no sense for bed that’s folded up, because wouldn’t they fall out? Oh but now it seems like a much bigger apartment, with a separate bedroom and a walk-in closet, although she hasn’t moved. She also has the biggest clawfoot bathtub in the history of clawfoot bathtubs; she’s 5'10", Graham is enough bigger to pick her up and carry her, yet there’s room not just for both of them to squeeze into the bathtub, but for them to comfortably play in it? He arrives at her apartment wearing jeans and a white shirt; both are dry, but he’s carrying his wetsuit which is still dripping.

When Graham returns in October, he puts down his bag, and two lines later, he puts it down again. Ruth is the only person caring for the elderly residents of Wild Acres, but she can take off for a couple of days here and there, or go off painting for hours, without any mention of who else might be covering her duties? And later, she takes on a job at a restaurant - how, why?

There is language that is beautiful and evocative. “I liked a soft shade of lavender that wanted both to be seen and to remain quiet.” Yet the language was not consistent. There were sections where Ruth/the narrator spoke in a very young, childish voice, “hugest, nauseous (rather than nauseated),” and in the same paragraph would break into a phrase like, “deep-seated neglect with stunning moments of maternal protection.”

The horrible, mentally ill?, alcoholic mother Diana was very hard to take. She abandons them to go off with her boyfriends, she abandons them, period, driving off to “teach Ruthie a lesson,” she tells them, “you kids have absolutely ruined my life,” she feeds them crap, when she feeds them at all, she lies about homeschooling them, uses them for child labor in the strawberry fields, and harvesting trash. I fully understand get that young children will accept whatever abnormal circumstances occur in their childhoods, and at the time, think nothing of it. But later, only Dolly is angry at Diana, and only because Diana has somehow signed a DNR and abandoned them via death. Ruth never seems to feel angry at her mother at all.

Ruth is raped as a very young teenager, and this trauma affects her for years. This part of the story is told very well, and I understand Graham’s part in helping her heal and supporting her past this, while at the same time, being someone who rips the scabs off her abandonment wounds. Lovers can be like that.

Yet there’s a throwaway part of the story; at 18 Ruth marries a man who’s alcoholic and who beats her. She divorces him by 19 (and has no trouble getting a divorce, even though the abusive husband is an attorney). It’s all covered in a few paragraphs and never referenced again - she seemingly is never haunted by these experiences again, never thinks about them, the ex never shows up to cause trouble.. This makes no sense.

There’s also the painting - Ruth learns to paint, she’s good at it, she loves it - and then she drops it. We never see Ruth do anything for herself that feeds her own soul; she is nobody except in relation to her mother, her sister, the old people at Wild Acres, to Graham, to her daughter. Who is Ruth? How has she learned/grown/changed?

All in all, this was a very interesting read, and I felt like it had so much potential, but I still cannot say it was a good book. I hope the author goes on to write more, and I hope she works with a better crit group and editor.

The Salt God's Daughter is a beautifully written novel about mothers, daughters and sisters and the bonds that tie them together.
Sisters Ruthie and Dolly are raised by their eccentric and many times irrational mother, Diana. Diana is always struggling to stay afloat as a single mom.

At first you see the story through the eyes of a young Ruthie and many of these scenes are heart wrenching as the girls live a nomadic life, living out of a car with their unstable mother. The magical realism and the mythology infused into the novel made this for a dream-like read.

As roles are reversed, the girls have to care for their mother. Diana is an alcoholic who suffers from bouts of depression and mania. Always on the road, staying in motels from time to time, these three are at the mercy of help from others. Diana often tells the girls how they ruined her life, she blames them for her losses.

The narrative is beautiful and some passages stole my breath away.
The story goes from past to present, as Ruthie takes us through the years of her life. Ruthie finds love one day, a complicated affair with a fisherman who comes and goes from her life. She calls him the Salt God.

Ruthie has a daughter, Naida, whom she refers to from time to time, until the latter half of the novel when the child is born and the story begins to revolve around Naida's life. This is the first time I've seen my name in a novel, as it is not a common name and I was pleasantly surprised.

Bullying becomes a theme in the novel as Naida is harassed by some of her classmates due to her having a webbed foot. They call her the "Frog Witch".
I liked Naida's character best, this is a girl who was in love with the ocean, who believed she could breathe under water and who was always searching for her father. The bullying scenes and Naida's inner monologue over them were particularly heart breaking. I also liked Ruthie's character and the bond between this mother and daughter. The story spans three generations of these women's lives, Diana, Ruthie and Naida.

I recommend The Salt God's Daughter to fans of magical realism and stories that are heart breaking, but showcase the strength of the human spirit as well.

disclaimer:
This review is my honest opinion. I did not receive any type of compensation for reading and reviewing this book. I am under no obligation to write a positive review. I won a copy of The Salt God's Daughter online.

poetic, lots of symbolism/imagery, may be interesting book club choice, many discussion possibilities. men almost completely absent from book.

encompasses three generations of women, the eldest is a chaotic, possibly alcoholic mother, her daughter struggles to overcome the difficulties faced in her young life, and the youngest becomes obsessed with finding her father. Although love and romance have their place here, this book is pretty much all about the women with men hardly having any presence at all, just slipping in here and there when needed. It is a slower paced, almost poetic book with lots of symbolism and imagery, including a twist on the selkie myth of mysterious seal women who can shed their skin to become human.

I've been very fortunate over the past several weeks to read a number of wonderful books that take folk tales, fairy tales, mythology as their heart. The Salt God's Daughter is one of those books. Ruby's story, based on the Celtic tradition of the selkie - uncanny creatures who appear as seals on the sea, but can shed their skins and walk when on land. Traditional tales of the selkie often lead to tragedy as a selkie and human fall in love (or not) and make a life together. It's the "making a life together" element that's tricky since often this part happens because the human partner steals and hides the selkie's skin so s/he cannot go back to the sea. I know you're thinking of The Little Mermaid (the Disney version). Stop. This folklore is a lot more complex and dark than anything anyone from Disney ever conjured.

The Salt God's Daughter is also about mother/daughter relationships. As a daughter I know how conflicted and complex these relationships are. Ruby weaves a tale of mothers and daughters and their bonds. Rich in imagery of the sea and of the moon, The Salt God's Daughter is a great follow-up to Ruby's first novel, The Language of Trees. Ruby has a talent for threading disparate parts of story into a coherent whole and I am glad to say that her sophomore effort is just as wise and wonderful as her first. Highly recommended.

From Lilac Wolf and Stuff

The Salt God's Daughter isn't an overly long book, but it is full of poetic and descriptive writing. The story itself is gripping and I enjoyed the writing. But I do want to give fair warning, it does get wordy. Now you just have to decide if you like that or not. I thought it was beautiful and moved quickly through the tale.

It's split into two parts. The first part tells the story of Ruthie's childhood, which was mostly unsupervised and spent homeless and traveling. Ruthie grows up to give birth to Naida and swears her daughter will never question her love. Ruthie has a terrible fear of water, yet lives near the ocean. Her daughter, Naida, loves the Ocean completely.

There were plenty of happy moments within the story, but you spend a lot of time with your heart breaking for Ruthie and Naida. The author doesn't pretend that it's all rosy when you are considered to be on the fringe of society. If you are different, you are a target.

There is a hint of magic in this tale with the tale of the people with animal skins who live in the water, never really belonging on land or to the sea. Ruthie's mother was obsessed with the moon and drawn to the ocean. It wasn't presented in a way to be "true" but it is never quite written off either. I truly loved all the mini-tales within this book. I was sorry to finish.

For readers who are primarily interested in the story line of a novel, this book may not satisfy. Ruby's deft hand with language and ability to evoke moving, crystalline images with words, however, will more than delight a different sort of reader. The touch of magic that weaves through the book adds a dimension of enjoyment and the characterizations, while lightly handled, are engaging.

About half-way through this book, I began skimming the large paragraphs and only reading the dialogue. Had I not done this, I would have put it down and never looked back. However, I was reading it for a group, so I wanted to at least know how it ended.

What's the book about? A lot of people who, to this point, didn't follow their dreams and are really depressed about how their lives turned out. And some addicts and the ghost of a dead little boy.

I just found the whole thing depressing and boring. If you're going to paint a sad story, at least make me care about the characters first. Instead, the reader is just thrown in to their sad lives and we find out (over and over) about why they are so messed up and unhappy. Perhaps others can read it and find some hopeful message in the way things turn out, but by that point, I just didn't really care what happened to them anyway.

Just not my kind of story...

A truly beautiful book! It almost made it to 5 stars, other that one issue that might well be a positive for other readers.The characters were amazing. I enjoyed the variety, each with a strong personality, shaped by life experience.Each character carried the past with them-- Melanie, her sister Maya, and her mother carried the death of Luke, the youngest of the three children. Melanie had finally seemed to put it behind her so she could get on with her life with her baby Lucas, and his father, Lion. When she disappears, it's blamed on her past with drugs, but Lion and Leila know better.Grant and Echo are haunted by their past together, wondering if their relationship should have ended many years ago, or at least if it should have ended differently. Each has their individual burdens. Grant has a legacy from his father that he doesn't understand, and a broken marriage he hasn't come to terms with. The paths of each of these characters have crossed in the past, and continue to do so in the book. As they come together to find what happened to Melanie, they learn about them selves as well.The plot revolves around the search for Melanie. I was very intrigued by this aspect of the story, mostly for what it showed about the characters by the actions they took. Even with all of the characters in the book, the plot still took a clear, relatively logical path.When I picked up this book to read, I'd forgotten that the description I'd read included "magical realism". This aspect of the story didn't really manifest until I'd been reading a while, and it took me by surprise. As the magical aspects permeated the story more and more, I appreciated how they helped build the web holding the book together. It was beautiful, internally consistent, and all together well done.I had only one complaint about the book, and my complaint may well be someone else's favorite aspect of The Language of Trees. While I was reading, the writing pulled at me, asking me to look at it. I prefer the words to simply tell me the story. Every time I stopped to pay attention, I agreed that the words were beautifully written, but it wasn't until I realized the book is written in present tense that the words stopped calling me out of the story.

This story gripped me from the very first words of the prologue: “The silken hair of the three children glows bone white in the moonlight as they paddle the stolen canoe out into the icy waters of Canandaigua Lake.”

Set in Canandaigua, New York, called the Chosen Spot by the Seneca, Ms. Ruby beautifully plants the scenes of her story in words that blossom full-screen in the mind. The landscape of this area of the Finger Lakes comes alive, and with those scenes of nature, the sense of history and significance of its first people with their reverent fusion of life and nature.

(Aside: So taken was I with this author, that I sought out her website (IlieRuby.com). When I clicked “Watch the Trailer”, the images of her story were just as I'd imagined them, so fully had she captured them in word.)

The writing is perfectly suited to the story, with a kind of lyricism that floats through the ages, that conjures images of secrets fluttering amidst the leaves of the trees; a lovely and lovingly written merging of present and past, groundedness and soaring, grief and healing, and painted in brushstrokes of magical realism. Peopled with believable, fully realized, characters and imagery, this is a story both heart-rending and hopeful.

I appreciate the author's participation in LibraryThing's 'Hobnob with Authors' group, and her gift of this book for my review. My heart was engaged with the story and its characters, my soul with the beauty of the setting, and my mind with the captivating writing. I loved this book.

I really liked the story of Grant Shongo, Echo McConnell and other characters in this beautifully written novel. I enjoyed learning about the Seneca Indians, their beliefs, and heritage. I'm looking forward to Ms. Ruby's next book and have recommended this one to other reader friends of mine.

I know I've found an all-time favorite book when, long after I've read the last page and forgotten some of the details related to plot and character, I remember how it made me feel. The Language of Trees is one of those books. Ms. Ruby's book had me at hello, and carried me through to the end on a magical, multicolored tapestry of love and longing, loss and healing. The characters are so beautifully-drawn, the sense of place so strong, that I still feel both as if they are now a part of me. Thank you, Ms. Ruby, for sharing this place, this story, and your superb writing with us.

The title of the book is what caught my eye and the main reason I requested it. It is incredibly sad, a family lost a child and no one ever quite recovers from it, too many people spend their lives in love with someone but never have the nerve to tell them....almost finished with it...will return when I am done.
There turns out to be a better ending than I expected...a few issues of the characters really weren't resolved for me, but for the most part it was an ok book.

While certainly an impressive work, this work has such contrast in its pages that I feel anything more than 3.5 stars doesn't do it full justice to what it could have been. There were pages I was so swept away by the beauty of the words that I had to go back to re-read what had actually happened within them. However, there were plenty of pages that I knew quite well what was going on but could not seem to care.

The characters are ill-developed for such a depth of language and for the scenery in which they exist. I found myself lost multiple times, though I was always pulled back in, which made me keep reading.

The story is a fully-fleshed one, giving full insight into a community, with neighborly love and loathing. But the connection was not consistent enough for me.½

Initially, I was intrigued by this book because a review (from where?) I read explicitly said: "Heyyyy. If you like folklore then this book is for you." I immediately jumped up and down in my head thinking: "They're talking to meeee!". So I requested it and Ba-Da-Bing, upon my doorstop it came.

What we have here is a story of unrequited love, of desperation, of abuse, of longing, and of magic. And it all takes place in this quaint town called Canandaigua where "restless spirits seem to clamor in the scan breezes on hot evenings."

The Cast

Grant, after a rocky marriage where wifey finally left because he just couldn't emotional connect, returns home. As it happens, Echo, the "one that got away" is returning to visit her family.

...while...

The Ellis family is still suffering from the loss of Luke, even though it has been many years since his mysterious death. His sisters are dealing with the devastation. Maya is in an institution and Melanie continues to blame herself even though she has a family now. Leila finally kicked dirtbag Victor out of the house, and although she never could be with the man she loved, she could watch her grandson grow up.

...while...

There's about three other love entanglements with other back stage characters.

My Thoughts

Allrighty. This book is going to be yet another one that the crowd adores and I am the Cheese Standing Alone. Such is life. I'm still not quite sure about the positive reviews. I found the characters to be nondescript, the dialogue swaying between bland and over-the-top, and not enough of the folklore that I was enticed with.

But really, how do I honestly feel? Heh.

I don't want to be terribly harsh in this review but if I wasn't reviewing this for the LT program I think I would have set it aside. Ouch, right? There were too many story lines all trying to feed into one and another without any specific plot truly being developed. I guess that's what bugged me. It lacked depth. I didn't find the writing beautiful, I found it tiresome.

Also, do adults really keep their feelings hidden as often as it is portrayed in this book? It moves beyond the "I'm shy and I don't want to get hurt" and into this compulsive, my love for you is a secret that I will take to the grave. For example, our *leading* characters Grant and Echo have known each other since they were kids. Always had eyes for each other even though neither said the L-word. At 17 and right before she moves off to college, Echo and Grant make love for the first time. Echo announces that she is in love with Grant and Grant, feeling too much, can't speak. So, what does the girl do? She takes off running, leaves town the next morning, and when he tries to explain on a phone call she just decides to tell him it was a mistake and that she's seeing someone else. IN WHAT WORLD DOES THIS HAPPEN?

I was probably done with the novel as soon as this was discovered - a mere couple of chapters in.

I say skip it, but everyone else in the world seems to say love it.

http://annotatedreading.blogspot.com/

I am clearly in the minority here. While I didn't actively dislike the book, I found it difficult to engage with any of the characters and couldn't suspend my disbelief long enough to find the magic that other reviewers have mentioned. I had such a hard time getting into the story that I ended up skimming through large portions of it, something I pride myself on rarely doing. Perhaps this is one to put on the "to be reevaluated later" shelf as maybe I just wasn't in the right mood for this book at this time.½

I LOVED IT!!! The writing style was magical. There were so many verses that spoke to me. I loved the character Echo. Her feeling of being "tethered" to her life. It really makes you think about the things that tether you to certain people, places and things. I am a true believer that spirits live on is us and to watch over us and this novel reaffirmed this belief. The Seneca folklore and lifestyle was interesting and I wanted to learn more and research Canandaigua more. I had never heard of this before reading this book. I liked the thought that the characters have "magical thinking." Sometimes this type of thinking helps us get through the tough times in life. I was at a state reading conference and I talked about this book to several people when they saw I was reading it. There are several who will be suggesting it yto their bookclub. This is Ruby's first novel but she writes with the prose of a much more experienced novelist. Her Native American history and folklore remind me of Erdrich. I can't wait for her to write more.

Thank you, Avon Harper Collins, for the copy of Language of Trees. I wasn't sure what to expect after the first chapter, but then happily realized that it is a complex, yet captivating novel about not just the love and emotions between a pair of old lovers, but about relationships and their intricate components of trust, faith, love, forgiveness, redemption, regret, and more. It makes a great book club choice.½

I thought this book was good. It was an interesting story. The premise of this one is a man down on his luck due to his wife left him goes back to the place he grew up. His old love reappears, a woman is missing and there is something special about Grant Shongo that can only be described as a type of spiritual magic.

For the rest of this review, go to my blog at: http://angelofmine1974.livejournal.com/33050.html

This was a truly lovely book, not a wrong note in it. This author writes so beautifully you almost don't care how the story will end, but of course you do care, and it is a great, provocative story. I rarely give 5 stars, but this has it from me. I received this book through the Goodreads Giveaway.

Compelling, complex tapestry
I couldn't put this book down, which is rare for me. By the midway point, I read straight through for 3 hours until I reached the end. Compelling, moving, heart-warming, mysterious, poetic, complex like a tapestry. There are so many sections that I want to re-read, just for the pure joy of its language. LOVED IT!

In her debut novel, The Language of Trees, Ilie Ruby weaves magic realism into an enchanting tale of love, loss, guilt, healing, and second chances. The effect is a heightened sense of reality and a satisfying, sentimental, and an often overly emotional journey through the unfathomable territory of the human heart. This is popular fiction, not literary fiction; this is melodrama, not drama; this is fantasy, not reality. Although this book did not appeal to me, I can easily see that it may be very successful with a large portion of women readers who yearn for this type of fiction and its message of hope.

Ilie Ruby is a gifted storyteller. Her prose is vivid, powerful, and at times delightfully lyrical. More often, at least in this work, her prose is overly dramatic…of course, this matches, mirrors, and supports the thread of magical realism that underlies the entire text. The dialog is not realistic, but neither does it have to be in a work of magical realism. Unfortunately, I found it impossible to get lost in the story. On the other hand, I am sure that most readers will gladly disappear into this author's artfully crafted spellbinding words.

The Language of Trees is set in the present day, in a small town on the shores of Lake Canandaigua, one of a chain of magnificent lakes that make up the famous Finger Lakes of upstate New York. It deals with a diversity of everyday people—a mix of urban, suburban, ghetto, and small town rural Americans. One by one, the reader is introduced to the emotional core of each person's needs, desires, hopes, and dreams. The lives of all the characters intersect in fascinating, mysterious, and surprising ways. Events happen that propel the story toward a page-turning climax.

The storyteller's skill makes everything feel natural and authentic, but make no mistake: this work is a highly orchestrated fantasy that succeeds, in part, by being more real than life itself. It guides the reader toward a higher order of reality, a reality where there is a purpose to life and "everything happens the way it was supposed to be." This is a feel good novel where the threads of many stories come together in the final chapters in an emotion-laden shower of good tidings.

Many people love this type of book; I don't. I found it difficult to enjoy because I was always aware of how the author was manipulating her readers…I could not simply believe. It is not her use of magic realism—I love this genre in fine literary hands where it helps propel the reader toward a better understanding of the human condition. But that is not the intent of this feel-good author with her theme of hope and love for all. I am too much of a realist to suspend my belief system that much!

This novel will have a wide appeal to women who yearn to escape into fiction and be enveloped in an all-encompassing story with a strong message of hope. This book aims to guide its readers toward the belief that there is a greater purpose to our lives—that there is something special in store for everyone.

I wish the author well. There is always room in the fiction constellation for works like these. I cannot say I thoroughly disliked the novel; but I certainly was not my cup of tea.

This book initially captured my attention due not only to the description, but also due to the title & cover art. As a debut novel, it was impressive. Mildly reminiscent of Sarah Addison Allen's stories with its magical realism, I think there was something deeper here. The description is a bit misleading in that it makes it sound as though the novel centers around the characters of Echo O'Connell and Grant Shongo, but really, they are only a portion of the cast of characters in this multi-layered story. Ilie Ruby has a way with words -- beautifully descriptive & lyrical. The only fault I found was that some of the transitions seemed a little rough, and the ending was wrapped up almost a little too neatly. But otherwise, a beautiful story. Looking forward to future novels by this author!