Review: Finding Casey by Jo-Ann Mapson

 

Title: Finding Casey

Author: Jo-Ann Mapson

Published: Bloomsbury January 2013

Synopsis: Glory Vigil, newly married, unexpectedly pregnant at 41, is nesting in the home she and her husband Joseph have just moved to in Santa Fe, a house that unknown to them is rumored to have a resident ghost. Their adopted daughter Juniper is home from college for Thanksgiving and in love for the very first time, quickly learning how a relationship changes everything. But Juniper has a tiny arrow lodged in her heart, a leftover shard from the day eight years earlier when her sister Casey disappeared-in a time before she’d ever met Glory and Joseph. When a fieldwork course takes Juniper to a pueblo only a few hours away, she finds herself right back in the past she thought she’d finally buried. A love story, a family story, a story of searching and the bond between sisters, Finding Casey is a testament to human resilience. This completely stand-alone novel, featuring beloved characters from Solomon’s Oak, will charm Mapson’s readers and move her into a larger sphere.

Status: Read from December 30 to 31, 2012 — I own a copy {Courtesy Bloomsbury ANZ}

My Thoughts:

I hadn’t realised that Finding Casey is a continuation of a story begun in Mapson’s Solomon’s Oak, which introduces the characters of Glory, Joseph and Juniper, not that it matters as this novel works well as a stand alone.

Set in Sante Fe, Glory and her new husband Joseph Vigil, a police officer retired on disability, have not long settled into a new home they share with a ghost nicknamed Dolores, and their adopted daughter, Juniper, when she is home from college in Albuquerque. When Glory discovers she is pregnant at 41 she is stunned yet excited, even with the persistent morning sickness and concerns about carrying a baby to term at her age.

Juniper is excited to be welcoming a baby brother or sister to their family but she can’t help but be reminded of her younger sister, Casey, who was abducted as a young child and never found. Juniper refuses to dwell on the long ago tragedy though instead focuses on the challenges of college and her budding relationship with the handsome but feckless Topher.

As Glory nests, Joseph considers a career change and Juniper experiences the joy and heartbreak of first love, a young woman named Laurel defies her isolated religious community to seek medical help for her seriously ill daughter, Aspen. As Laurel sits by her child’s bedside willing her to recover from the coma she has slipped into, she reflects on her history with Seth and the Farm while trying to avoid the probing questions of the hospital’s social worker and staff.

The connection between Laurel and the Vigil family soon becomes apparent but it is a remarkable, if unlikely, twist of fate that brings them together. Not that I minded much, even with the predictability of the plot and uneven pacing, because I had come to care about the characters and wanted the best for each of them.

Finding Casey is a charming story of family, love and redemption.

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