Soul Survivor

A quest for identity that traffics in New Age notions of reincarnation and astral travel, Martin's second novel (after Out of Body, Into Mind, winner of a Writer's Digest Book Award for Fiction) is a curious hybrid that suffers from pedestrian prose as well as a far-fetched storyline. Raised by an aristocratic grandmother in Virginia, Linda Cheswick never learned why her mother deserted her as a child. The details become critical when Linda's grandmother dies and her uncle threatens to sell Live Oaks, the family estate, unless Linda can locate her mother and take control of the property under the terms of the will. Assisting her in the search is the spirit of her soul mate, who has left the astral plane and entered the earthly body of Rick Henderson, Linda's crack-addicted boss (whose timely death allows the soulmate to slip in). Linda and Rick slowly track her kidnapped mother back to Corsica, where Linda lands smack in the middle of a blood feud that makes her the target of a hit man who must kill her in retaliation for some obscure family crime. Martin handles the suspense well, and Linda's romance with Rick is fun, despite some obvious banter about karma and the like. Still, the charm of this slight tale is sapped by the lurid and silly Corsican subplot, which seems imported from another novel altogether. (Dec.)