THE WINTER GARDEN

Holland's most popular Christian fiction writer offers her first novel in an elegant English translation, telling the story of Ika Boerema, a Dutch landscape designer who has fled a childhood scarred by the shame of her illegitimate birth and loveless parents. She is abruptly pulled back into this emotional past by a letter informing her of her mother's impending death. Ika must confront years of emotional neglect and pain in facing her family again and making peace with her mother and with herself. Verweerd dances back and forth between the present and poignant flashbacks to Ika's childhood, which tantalizingly disclose why she fled her family. Her memories gradually reveal her parents' blatant favoritism for Ika's younger sister, her stepfather's constant criticism, her mother's cool distance and her grandfather's obsession with sin. They also tell warmly of one teacher's kindness to Ika, and the boy who shared her passion for gardening. The novel's most compelling mystery, however, is the identity of Ika's father. Her mother has kept his name an ironclad secret and now threatens to take it with her to the grave. Ika's transition from a bitter and wounded daughter to a woman capable of compassionately washing her mother's dying body is gentle and realistic. Verweerd steers clear of predictability and preaching, using a soft-spoken narrative and well-developed characters to bring about a quiet redemption in one woman's life. (Apr.)