The story of Velma - a widow who barely leaves her house - and how she was given a strange gift that led her to places old and new. The reader also meets Annie - a young woman who makes her way to Velma's doorstep, bearing secrets and followed by a mysterious dark force.
This was not a particularly memorable read for me. The supernatural elements made made it kind of hard to relate to in places. ( )

This was a pretty cool book. I was going through a pretty intense Faulkner phase at the time, so it was fun to read something both southern and newly penned. I assume the market for this sort of thing would be huge. ( )

This review first appeared on my blog: http://jewelknits.blogspot.com/2010/11/saints-in-limbo-by-river-jordan-book.html

I think I'm still high from this book. From the first sentence:

It was the kind of day when even the lost believed.

through the end, I was transported into an everyday world that was somehow more. Marvelous imagery and evocative prose cause you to smell the wisteria and hear the plop of the mullets as they jump up and hit back down into the water of Echo, Florida. A world where a plain, smooth rock suddenly eddies and flows with color, opening the door into a magical place of remembrance, and an evil that feeds on regret comes knocking in whatever face it wants to don that day.

We meet Velma, clinging to threads in her front yard to keep from being swept away by the current that gripped her when she opened her mailbox to find her husband Joe's death certificate waiting there.

We meet her best friend Sara Long, a retired teacher whose memories are slowly slipping away.

We meet Rudy, Velma's son, handsome and charming, but never living up to his potential. Drinking and womanizing to keep the bugs that he sometimes feels crawling on his skin at bay.

We meet Annie, a musically-gifted teen being raised by an uncaring and emotionally abusive aunt after the sudden death of her mother from a brain aneurism. She journeys on her own from Texas in search of something that is calling to her in Echo.

There's Rose, owner of the local tavern and pizza joint, who has bailed Rudy out of trouble and been his friend and confidante.

And finally, Mr. Springer, Rudy's retired schoolteacher neighbor, who Rudy enlists to watch his mother one day when he feels an unnamed dread lurking in the trees surrounding his mother's house.

It is difficult to classify this story; a mixture of fantasy, a touch of horror, a drama of friendship and family - it is all of this and more.

I absolutely loved it.

QUOTES:

They sat quietly for a while, a little more shook up than they would like to admit - both of them being strong women in different ways. It's not every day that they tussled and rolled in the dirt and traveled through time.

That night Rudy slept in the old bedroom by the front porch, the one closest to the door. He listened for anything that sounded like it might be hungrily searching for something that now belonged to his mama.

Eddie looked at Rudy and smiled. Rudy saw him then in the light of his mother's front yard. He didn't see his lonely neighbor. He saw the man, the retired teacher from Chicago. Rudy saw that he held his back up straight when he walked and that he had a gentleman's grace that Rudy didn't possess and never would. Not like that. Mr. Eddie Springer had his own magic, but Rudy had been too self-absorbed to see it. ( )

An unusual read that was somewhat mystical, Southern, and Christian all rolled into one. It wasn't what I was expecting, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. ( )

You can get a feel for the plot and premise from the other reviews, so I'll skip past that. I approached this book with much hesitation, and not sure why (mood? theme?). But once I got into the rhythm of her writing, it was very hard to put down. The characters were developed wonderfully, and the plot flowed easily. I ended up caring about each and every character and what happened to them, even wishing that I could get to know Velma for real. Great story. Recommend. ( )