The Dove in Bathurst Station

In this meditative novel by Westerhof (Catch me When I Fall), unresolved guilt and grief over a tragedy in her past spur a Toronto woman to explore unseen worlds%E2%80%94from the storm drains below the city's sidewalks to her own interior spiritual landscape. Compassionate and effective in her job as a high school guidance counselor, Marta nonetheless feels adrift in her life. Alienated from her band-manager husband, creatively stalled in her songwriting, she begins to interpret random events as divine "signs" calling her toward personal transformation. Seeking answers to questions she can't articulate, she asks a former student to bring her on his underground journeys; joins a group studying the writings of Julian of Norwich; and finally returns to her childhood home of Lethbridge, Alberta, to confront the ghosts that haunt her. The book is meticulously researched, and Westerhof's love of place shines through in the wealth of detail about locations, but sometimes this information is clumsily integrated into the story. Passages where Marta visits historic Toronto buildings read like tourist brochures, and it seems unlikely that even this dreamy and imaginative character would fall into a reverie about irrigation systems at a time of emotional catharsis. (Sept.)