MISTIK LAKE

Katie MacNichol portrays the tangled lives of three women who are impacted by love, secrets, and death. As a teen, Sally was the sole survivor of a tragic car accident on Mistik Lake. Now her daughter, Odella, must cope with her mother’s alcoholism and then with her abandonment. Sally's Aunt Gloria tries to hold the family together while hiding the secret of her own lesbian love life. The mysteries that are eventually unveiled about each woman draw the survivors closer. MacNichol handles the varying points of view beautifully, fully revealing characters, and even depicts settings as if they were characters. MacNichol’s characters age gracefully in voice—except for Odella's whiny youngest sibling, whose tone is irritating but understandably so in view of her mother's abandonment. D.P.D. © AudioFile 2008, Portland, Maine [Published: OCTOBER 2008]