Author: Charles de Lint
Cover Artist: John Jude Palencar
Publisher: Tor
Binding: Hardcover
Publication Date: March 2009
Grace Quintero is a young woman who loves restoring and customizing hot rods. In fact, she loves it so much that it’s how she makes her living. On a Halloween night, she meets John Burns and they fall for each other. The only real obstacle in the way of their relationship is that Grace is dead. Most of the year, she lives in a sort of pocket reality that consists of a few blocks centered around the building where she lived. While you might assume this book centers on John and Grace figuring out a way around their unique situation, but it always seems that Charles de Lint’s books never quite take the path that you might assume they would. This one is no exception. What unfolds is a story that involves rockabilly music, hot rods, a bruja, and a deeper story about not only doing what’s right, but letting go of fears.
I have always liked de Lint’s books because the way that he writes carries a rhythmic quality that soothes the reader into the universe that he’s creating. The flow of the story isn’t just natural and logical, the words feel good in your head, or if you choose to read it out loud, they feel equally as good in your mouth. His prose is concise without seeming spare or rushed. The story is never bogged down with extraneous details or unnecessary plot points. Everything within the narrative framework needs to be there and the reasons are revealed in their own time. The plots never seem contrived and there aren’t deus ex machina moments that force events in the story. However, readers that want a neat, pat resolution to the story will probably be disappointed. The book ends in a way that feels right to the story and makes perfect sense for the characters, but, again, it isn’t quite what the reader expects, even if it isn’t necessarily a surprise.
This book works on many levels, both as a good contemporary fantasy, as a deeper allegory, and as a tight literary work. Fans of de Lint’s work will enjoy this, and it’s a good introduction for someone who’s never read anything by him, since it does stand alone. It’s also a good book for anyone who enjoys ghost stories.
