Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: Thirteen years after Vera Gamble's little brother ran away from their Texas home, his body washes ashore on the remote island of Winter Haven, Maine. Vera goes to claim the corpse and discovers the impossible: her brother hasn't aged a day since last she saw him. Determined to uncover what happened, she is confronted by unearthly fog, disturbing locals, and stories of lost colonies and a vengeful witch.

Beyond the forest where no creature dares to live, her only hope is the mysterious owner of a dilapidated mansion on a rocky cliff. But will this solitary man assist her, or is Vera Gamble doomed to disappear forever into yet another Winter Haven legend?

I RECEIVED AN ARC FROM THE PUBLISHER. THANK YOU.

My Review: In my ongoing, possibly misguided, quest not to die above the neck before I do below it, I asked Bethany House for an ARC of this author's latest (in 2008) christian-themed mystery. I don't know why they said yes, but they did, and then I never reviewed it. Sinful wicked shame on me!

There was a time in the early Aughts that I made a concerted effort to believe in the whole christian malarkey-fest. (I was pursuing a most callipygian, but Jesusy, guy.) It was a complete and abject failure on every level, since he didn't give up the goodies despite my going to church with him! The nerve! But I found some very interesting books....

Supernatural shenanigans? Teased; not delivered. Much depends on the voice the author creates when reading a first-person narrative. Vera Gamble is a ninny, the spit-and-image of a Mary Sue. Hanging the story on her was not satisfying. The death of her brother seems to me to be a weirdly xianized form of fridging. The entire story resolves into an address to the Problem of Evil. It is, as I am sure you've already twigged by now, utterly unconvincing as such. (I've never read anything, even straight-out apologetics, that resolve the Problem of Evil.)

There is a great deal of cartoonishly overstated Wickedness imputed to the townspeople of Winter Haven. It is, peculiarly enough, this over-egging of the pudding that gave me the "in" to this book's successful level: Gothic fiction is heightened, exaggerated, and therein its charm. It's a feature, not a bug, of the Gothic tropes that they're over every kind and sort of top. Without that the story would collapse under the weight of its silliness. Once I got that spark to light the brain-fuse I began to enjoy myself. I read the christianizing bits as irony, though they were decidedly not meant that way. It gave me a way to derive enjoyment from what was otherwise a truly dreary slog. ( )

Vera reist naar het eiland Winterhaven om het lichaam van haar broer Siggy te bergen. Als ze het lichaam te zien krijgt lijkt Siggy geen dag ouder geworden sinds de dag dat hij - 13 jaar geleden - verdween.
Vera is vastbesloten uit te zoeken wat er met Siggy is gebeurd. Ze gaat op zoek naar de locatie waar hij is aangespoeld. Maar het eiland is omgeven door geheimzinnigheden. De eilandbewoners zijn onvriendelijk en ze krijgt nauwelijks medewerking. Vera wordt bang gemaakt met oude legendes over Pilgrims die voorgoed verdwenen, verhalen over een heks en de gevaren van het woud. Ze hoort huiveringwekkende geluiden en wordt met stenen bekogeld. Dan ontmoet ze de mysterieuze eigenaar van een vervallen huis bovenop een klif. Ze voelt zich enorm tot deze man aangetrokken, maar is hij wel te vertrouwen?

Spannend, goed geschreven, plot zit goed in elkaar (niet afgeraffeld zoals vaak het geval is bij boeken die heel spannend beginnen, maar eindigen in een anti-climax). Toen Eva de mysterieuze Evan ontmoette (die als uitzonderlijk knap wordt omschreven), dacht ik éven dat het richting liefdes-flut-romannetje zou gaan, maar dat was gelukkig toch niet het geval!
Zeker een aanrader dit boek! ( )

This book seems all mixed up with the supernatural - there is a malevolent ghost, and a tragic tale of death and vengeance, and the possibility of madness. Vera doesn't know whom to trust - she can't even trust herself. But somehow Mr. Dickson gathers all the threads of a ghost story and turns it instead to a story of faith and goodness and healing. Beautiful. ( )

I hadn’t read any of Athol Dickson’s work before, but I was curious about the acclaim his novels have received. It was with some uncertainty that I opened the pages of his atmospheric, moody Winter Haven. Set on a remote Maine island, filled with fog, superstition, and the appearances of dead bodies on the beach – including that of Vera Gamble’s long missing autistic brother. Gone some 13 years, his body appears the same as the day he left home – one of the many mysteries she finds on this spooky island.

While variously appearing to be mystery, suspense, and possibly even paranormal at times – the novel’s heart instead lies in the relationships between the characters, and perhaps most importantly – Vera’s struggle coming to terms with her tortured relationship to the past and a newly forming tenuous hope that ties her to the future.

Without giving away too much, I will say that this novel kept me rapidly reading in order to uncover the mystery at the heart of Winter Haven. I think I finished in two days, which is pretty fast for me considering I have a house full of children (4 at last count). I’m not afraid to admit that the last few chapters wrung a few tears out of me as well.

Winter Haven is a bit of an emotional roller coaster ride, surging between fear, suspicion, trust, and even the tentative buds of romance. Dickson is a confident writer who takes you through the trip with a sure hand at the rudder.

Reviewed at quiverfullfamily.com ( )

This book has a lot of twists and turns and I felt like I was upside down sometimes. The main character gets confused and believe me so does the reader. It was an interesting read. ( )