The Return

When schoolteacher Catherine Fane travels to rural Kentucky to fulfill her guardian's last wishes by burying the woman's body near the cabin where she lived years before, she unwittingly stirs a sleepy town into an ugly fervor. Although Catherine wasn't a blood relation, kindly Annie Fane had taken her in after her parents were mysteriously murdered. But the superstitious townsfolk of Camarune used to consider Annie a witch, and they immediately apply the label to Catherine as well, menacing the schoolteacher's plan to stay in the isolated cabin while she tries to make sense of her life. Then she meets Luke DePriest, the area's sexy sheriff, who tries to protect her, all while hunting a thief who's been leaving strange wooden carvings in the place of the goods he steals. When a deranged farmer shoots Catherine in the back, the townsfolk are jolted back to their senses, Luke and Catherine are forced to confront their love for each other, and Catherine finally discovers the long-lost truth of her past. McCall's (Touchstone) opening is intriguing and her locale appealingly stark. Unfortunately, cursory characterization and plot development (the homicidal farmer is introduced only a single scene before he attacks) give the book a blandness not redeemed by a lackluster romance. (May)