The Light Through the Leaves

Vanderah follows Where the Forest Meets the Stars with another magical story about the power of love and second chances. After Ellis Bauhammer discovers her husband, Jonah, is having an affair, she takes a day trip with their four-year-old twins and newborn daughter, Viola, to a forest preserve near their home in Upstate New York. Ellis has had a lifelong connection with nature, and finds solace there. But tragedy strikes when she leaves Viola for a moment in the parking lot and the baby is abducted. Ellis numbs herself with booze and pills, and permanently leaves Jonah and the twins to visit her Midwest home. In a parallel narrative set in the Washington wilderness, a child named Raven is sequestered by her mercurial mother. Raven longs for human connection and briefly finds it with a group of boys who encourage her to visit their school, prompting Raven’s mother to place her on a strict lockdown. Meanwhile, several years after Viola’s disappearance, Ellis has achieved sobriety and begun a new life running a nursery in Florida, and eventually the stories of Ellis and Raven converge. Despite an ending that resolves complex conflicts too quickly and neatly, Vanderah elicits wonder in Raven’s strange world. Readers are left with a memorable story of love’s healing power. (Apr.)