A soul-stirring novel about the bonds between mother and child and the redemption that comes with facing the past and letting it go.
Thirty-two-year-old Jess Abbot has lost everything: her job, her apartment, and—most heart-wrenching—her eight-year-old son, Chance, to a tragic accident. Haunted by memories and grief, Jess packs what’s left and heads for the small mountain town of Pine Lake, … of Pine Lake, where she takes a position as caregiver to an eccentric old woman.
A rumored clairvoyant, Lucy is strange but welcoming and immediately intuits Jess as a “loose end” in need of closure. But Jess isn’t the only guest in Lucy’s large Victorian home. There’s also Star, a teenage runaway with a secret too painful to share. And the little boy with heart-shaped stones, who comes with a hope for reconciliation—and a warning.
Soon Jess learns that she’s not the only lost soul running from the ghosts of the past. She and Star have been brought together for a reason: to be saved by the very thing that destroyed them.
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The Secrets of Lost Stones was such a great read, but it’s one that I’m finding difficult to review. It’s a little difficult to explain without giving away important parts of the story.
Jess, one of the main characters, stops in this strangely deserted looking town wanting to fill her tank before it’s empty. Nothing seems to be open except a general store that should really be in a ghost town. She meets Lucy who is clairvoyant, but in an odd sort of way. Lucy gets clues in her daily crossword puzzles and the answers to the clues turn out to be important to what needs to be solved.
Lucy is such a great character! Rather than making her a “normal” clairvoyant, Melissa Payne really changed her up and gave her interesting, quirky ways of solving problems. Star joins the cast also and is a teen that’s really been through the system and seen all the ugly. Great characters and a plot that kept me reading made for a wonderful weekend with this book.
Do yourself a favor and check out Melissa Payne’s first book. I think, like me, you’ll watch for her in future.
Thanks to Netgalley, the author and publishers for an ARC at my request. All thoughts are my own and happily given because I really loved this story.
This is a book that took me into a story that was intriguing, emotional and mysterious. The characters have a common thread but that thread has all kinds of loose ends that need to be tied together. I felt compelled to read the pages and to discover the reason and how those ends would be tied. How, what seemed like coincidental meetings, were really meant to happen and why.
What kind of secrets can a stone hold? Or is it the secrets that are held in a person’s mind and heart that the stones help to reveal? The character of Lucy, the “witch of Pine Lake”, holds the secrets to the answers. “I’m Lucy”, she said, winking, “and I know things.” She’s a little, old lady who owns an old house in Pine Lake where the characters find themselves. “It was hard not to like the old woman, even if she was an odd mix of fairy godmother and witch.” Her home feels like the place where the characters of Jess and Star belong and it holds them there by some mysterious force.
Jess and Star are two characters whose lives are broken. Each for different reasons. Lucy knew something. Each chapter in the book is told from the POV of Jess and Star. The threads start to connect as each of the character’s pasts start to be revealed. There’s a cast of characters that blend into the present to help Jess and Star begin to discover what has torn their lives apart for so many years. How are they connected? It’s Lucy’s mission, through crossword puzzles and questions, to tie it all together. “Lucy knew something; otherwise, Star and Jess and Chance wouldn’t all be here together, and it was only a matter of time before it would all come out.”
I enjoyed this book and the unusual ways the author intertwined the characters together. It’s a tragic and emotional story. My heart ached for Jess and Star. How would they help to heal each other when there was so much pain carried within each one? I bonded with Lucy and her mysteriousness. Her heart for the people’s loose ends that need tied together makes me love her so much.
“It takes time for all the loose ends to be in one place, but once they are, things tend to move quickly.”
This is a very good debut novel for Melissa Payne. I enjoyed it very much. Her writing is very descriptive and I was taken to my home state of Colorado. I also experienced the paranormal events with a quickening heart, the suspenseful scenes with anxiousness, and the tragedies with heart wrenching sadness. There were things that happened I never expected. I loved the emotions that were pulled out of me by this story. This is a good read and I’m looking forward to reading the next book by Ms. Payne.
I want to thank Netgalley, Lake Union and Melissa Payne for the opportunity to read this book!
Stories of loss are often moving, but rarely are they as fulfilling and redemptive as this stirring debut… Payne spins a fast-paced tale full of tenderness and sparked with magic, illustrating how the future can transcend the past, and proving that forgiveness is the greatest virtue.
A compelling story of hidden secrets and the forgiveness that finds us when we least expect it.
Forgiveness, magic, love – a well written novel with an other worldly tone. The characters are relatable. Her story contains various twists and is a good read.