The Healing Spell - Softcover

Kimberley Griffiths Little is the author of THE HEALING SPELL and CIRCLE OF SECRETS, as well as dozens of short stories that have appeared in numerous publications, and the novels BREAKAWAY, ENCHANTED RUNNER, and THE LAST SNAKE RUNNER. She is the winner of the Southwest Book Award. Kimberley lives near the banks of the Rio Grande in New Mexico in a solar adobe house with her husband and their three sons.

Gr 5-8–Guilt-ridden because she believes she caused the accident that resulted in her mother being in a coma, 11-year-old Livie is terrified to tell anyone for fear they will hate her. She and her mother have never been close, but she adores her father and spends a lot of time with him in the Louisiana swamps where they live. Daddy chooses to care for Mamma at home, believing it will hasten her recovery, and Livie can't bear to touch her, which causes friction with her older sister and the aunt who's come to help out. Because she desperately wants her mother to be well, the girl visits a traiteur who lives deep in the bayou to obtain a healing spell guaranteed to work if Livie has faith. The setting is beautifully described and the protagonist is well-defined. However, the book is too long for the plot. Readers will figure out how the accident happened long before the characters do. The ending, with the mother waking from her weeks-long coma one night, talking to her drowsing husband, going to her art studio and finishing a painting, then returning to bed and to unconsciousness, is rather far-fetched. It isn't clear whether the author wanted the event to be mystical or miraculous, but it definitely isn't realistic.–Nancy P. Reeder, Heathwood Hall Episcopal School, Columbia, SCα(c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.