The Glittering World

When Blue travels to the remote community of Starling Cove to settle his late grandmother's affairs, he's expecting nothing more than a pleasure jaunt with friends and a touch of nostalgia for the place where he was born. What he gets instead is a trip into the mystical and weird, a sense that slowly overtakes him until the night that he and his best friend, Elisa, vanish from their vacation rental, leaving behind Blue's adoring friend Gabe and Elisa's husband, Jason. Told by each of the four characters in turn, the story meanders through their various mind-sets. All four share a certain disconsolate moodiness, whether the character is merely unrooted and unhappy with life, or desperately searching for a long-lost love whose physical absence parallels the emotional separation he's been trying to ignore. This melancholy novel, meant to dance on the edge of horror, strikes a note that is dim instead of dark, wandering deeply into introspection as the plot creeps onward. (Feb.)