Firefly Island

In this third volume of award-winning novelist Wingate’s Moses Lake series, Mephistopheles meets modern love in a cozy but predictable story of leaning on one’s steady faith. In an office comedy of errors, congressional staffer Mallory Hale runs into handsome (“beautiful green eyes... [that] seemed to glow with an inner light that was almost otherworldly”) Daniel Webster Everson and falls head over heels into the yawning chasm of love. Everson comes with baggage in the form of a young son, Nick, from a previous and unhappy marriage, and love-struck Mallory welcomes both into her yearning heart. Life swims with joy until Jack West offers Daniel a job in the middle-of-nowhere Texas; Daniel asks Mallory to marry him, and soon, Mallory, Daniel, and Nick are bound for the Lone Star state, where a series of mysterious circumstances on Firefly Island threaten their marriage and their lives. The novel’s moralistic ending is unsatisfying and fails to match the often suspenseful power of the rest of the novel. (Feb.)