A Stillness of Chimes by Meg Moseley Book Review

A Stillness of Chimes by Meg Moseley

This book introduces the characters Laura, Sean, and Cassie as twelve-year-olds picking blackberries in Prospect, Georgia.  They are great friends and promise to protect each other forever.  The next chapter is 18 years later.  A lot has happened in the intervening years.  At 14, Sean was rescued by Laura and Cassie's dads from his abusive father.  When Laura was 18, her father, a Vietnam veteran who had "spells" of darkness in his life, was presumed drowned, though his body was never found.  Laura and Sean, who were childhood sweethearts, broke up their relationship in the pain of losing Laura's dad.  Laura went to college in Colorado and became a teacher there.  Cassie has married and moved to California where she and her husband are struggling to make ends meet.

The three have met up again in the hometown because Laura has come home to settle her mother's affairs after her sudden death.  Cassie has come home to help her father figure out what is wrong with her mother, who seems to be losing her mind.  Sean has stayed in Prospect and is still single.  He wants Laura to know from him before she hears the town gossip, that people are claiming to have seen her dad alive!  Laura doesn't know whether to hope her beloved daddy is still alive or not.  The implications of him having staged his drowning and abandoning her and her mother is too staggering to consider.  Had he loved them, despite his PTSD, or not?

Sean and Laura have to figure this out:  find out if he is alive, and support Cassie as she deals with the strange things her mom is doing.  Is there a connection in the strangeness?

Questions I asked:  Will Sean and Laura rediscover their love for each other?  Will Laura's father be found? Why is Cassie's mother 'losing it'?  What are the secrets that their parents have hidden from them?  And what kind of trouble will Sean's alcoholic, hateful father cause to all of them?  Will Laura be able to recover her faith in God that she lost when she lost her daddy?

This book was a page turner for me.  It is a pretty fast read, and very enjoyable.  The title was cleverly chosen, as the night the wind chimes were stilled, the mysteries began to be solved.

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.

Read the first chapter now.