Rating: 3/5
Dicey knew that she was sitting very still on a train, moving across the night. She knew her hands were wrapped around the wooden box that held the ashes of her momma. But she felt as if a wind blew through her hands and took even Momma away. What did that leave her with? The wind and her empty hands. The wind and Dicey.
The second novel in the Tillerman Cycle continues where
Homecoming left off. Dicey Tillerman and her three siblings are living with their reclusive grandmother in a sequestered farm in Maryland, where thirteen-year-old Dicey is working on the restoration of an old sailboat while struggling with the family problems. Her mother is catatonic in a psychiatric hospital in Boston, her sister Maybeth is showing signs of Mrs Tillerman’s insanity, and she is worried that her grandmother doesn’t have enough money to look after the four young Tillermans. Meanwhile, Dicey herself is grappling with letting go of her dying mother and holding onto her three younger siblings.
This book was quite good, but I preferred the previous novel in the series,
Homecoming. While overall it was very well-written, there were a few parts that made you cringe a bit, for example:
It was one of those first fall days that look colder than they really are. But it really was cold.
And also here, where Dicey first sees Jeff Greene (the main character in the next novel):
His thin face had a light tan to where she sees him again nearer the end:
His skin was pale, as if he didn’t get outside much.