All We Hold Dear

Readers who loved the bestselling Too Deep for Tears will also be ensnared by this ambitious sequel, once they swallow such overwritten sentences as the novel's opening line: ``The sea sang and snarled and wept in a voice that echoed the ancient cry of mermaids in their shimmering isolation.'' Davis returns to beautiful, wild Glen Affric in the Scottish highlands as the primary setting of her passionate story about a young girl's search for the truth about her ancestors. The novel, which alternates between the 20th and 19th centuries, opens in 1988 on a small Scottish island where--on her 18th birthday and at the request of her biological mother, Celia Ward, who died many years ago--Eva Crawford is told by her parents that she was adopted as a baby. In a letter to Eva, Celia invites her daughter to learn more about her past by contacting her friend, Eilidh, in Glasgow. There Eilidh gives her Celia's ebony Chinese chest, which contains a journal written by one of Eva's ancestors, Ailsa Rose, in 1882. The journal, which unfolds in sections throughout the novel, depicts the colorful inhabitants in Glen Affric, a place of extraordinary raw beauty. Davis's 19th-century characters are so richly drawn that it's difficult to leave them when she returns to the less colorful Eva. Still, the intertwining of the two times creates an affecting story. Major ad/promo; Simon & Schuster Audio. (May)