Piepie | The Napping Bibliophile's Reviews > The Tale of Halcyon Crane

I read this all in one day! I didn't want to put it down!

Hallie James' story (formerly known as Halcyon Crane) is told to her by a wraith-like housekeeper named Iris, who knows all the family secrets and lore. There is more than a dash of the supernatural here - witches, ghosts, murderous accidents, and a seance. It's a book that you'll want to read during the daytime with all the lights on!

Hallie comes to live in a fictional version of Mackinac Island (Minnesota), and I love this setting. Fudge shops, horse-drawn carriages, and neighbors who have grown up beside you like family.

This is Wendy Webb's first book, and I read all her others previously, so I recognized things that she would recycle into her later novels - affairs, twins, ghosts, seances... and of course those friendly and protective Alaskan Malamutes ;)

I love Wendy's protagonists - I feel like I would love to crawl into the book and get to know them and become their friend. We would eat French onion soup, crisp salad, and crusty bread - a meal which crops up again and again in Wendy's writing. Her characters are so real to me, and I love that. I become deeply invested in her books - I love that feeling.