The morning the book begins is like any other, if you discount the body she thought at first was hanging from a tree in the yard next door. Her heart does a little stutter step until she remembers that tomorrow is Halloween.

Francie hasn't met many of her neighbors yet, but an afternoon journey among them to sell boxes of candy with her daughter remedies that. They all seem nice enough, different in many ways, as in any neighborhood.

On Halloween night, Sam will take Savannah trick-or-treating, while she stays home to greet all of the little ghosts and goblins.

And Francie does. Later in the night her doorbell rings and a bigger than-the-norm child stands on her doorstep. The teen-age girl, all dressed in black, says trick-or-treat and then after glancing at the bowl of candy, asks for fruit. Francie is surprised, but brings the girl an apple. As the girl turns away her shawl slips and Francie absently notices the girl is on the stout side, with no waist at all. It all comes together when on the next morning she finds a child on her doorstep.

She becomes determined, obsessive Sam says, with finding the girl again. It causes friction between them, but she can't stop. Memories of her own past as a young single mother push her on.

Francie's investigation uncovers things in her neighborhood that are far from typical, but I'll let you read this story and find them out for yourself.

Overall rating:
Sensuality rating: Sweet

Reviewer: Barbara M. Hodges
December 18, 2004