The Tale of Halcyon Crane
116. Wendy Webb, The Tale of Halcyon Crane
Hallie James’s life is fairly normal, living on the Puget Sound in Washington State and caring for her Alzheimer’s-stricken father. Then she receives a mysterious package from Grand Manitou, a tiny island in the Great Lakes, informing her that her mother has recently died. Hallie is shocked by the news, having believed all her life that her mother died in a car accident when Hallie was a child. She travels to Grand Manitou Island to put her mother’s affairs in order and learns that a dark tragedy overshadows her family’s history. The longer she stays on the island, the more Hallie discovers about her family’s disturbing history. Eventually, she becomes convinced that she is being literally haunted by the ghosts of her past.
Though this book isn’t exactly what I was expecting, I enjoyed many things about it. The setting is very unique, and I had fun imagining what life would be like in a town that still uses horses and carriages as the primary mode of transportation. I also found the novel very readable; the plot moves along at a good pace, and the prose never gets in the way of the story. I didn’t connect particularly well to Hallie as a main character, which is especially unfortunate because the novel is written in first person. I also wasn’t sold on the eerie/gothic elements of the story, mostly because I didn’t feel any sense of suspense or horror. The book could have been so much more interesting if, for example, doubts were raised as to Hallie’s sanity. At any rate, this novel is a decent light read with some supernatural elements, but it’s not particularly spooky.