On the heels of her bestselling debut, The Invitation, Mountain Dreamer has written the gentlest of spiritual self-help books urging readers to slow down, let go and dance. Her central theme is that who we are is enough (loving enough, compassionate enough) and that only fear prevents us from accepting this liberating truth. Another recurring theme is the importance of learning to hold and keep others in our hearts in order to dissolve the divisive us-and-them dichotomy that deadens empathy. Each of her 12 chapters is followed by a practical meditation for readers to internalize and implement her ideas. If these lessons sound heavy-handed or high-minded, Mountain Dreamer delivers them in the most engaging and personal way. Her writing is intimate and conversational, its greatest strength being her use of illustrative anecdotes. Sometimes she draws from the lives and experiences of individuals she has spiritually counseled, but most often she tells stories about herself. These are not the exhortations of a wise and enlightened spiritual guru, but the true-life struggles of a multifaceted woman who is a divorced single mother of teenage boys, a lover, a spiritual guide and a writer. Her occasional use of profanity is entirely gratuitous, but she writes disarmingly of her own hurts, blunders and embarrassments, including her failures to take her own advice. The fact that she does so "without self-recrimination" demonstrates her effort to heed the message of the book and accept herself as she is. (Sept.)
Forecast:Even readers who usually eschew New Age books enjoyed
The Invitation, which has sold nearly a quarter of a million copies and received a nice spike in sales after the author's appearance on
Oprah last year. Mountain Dreamer suffuses this gift book with the same broad appeal; it should easily sell out its first printing of 68,000. HSF plans national advertising and a five-city author tour.
