Eternal on the Water – J. Monninger
The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long.
The author lets the reader know the tragic end of the story on the first page. Boy meets girl and they both fall in love. Girls lets boy know that her time on earth is limited. Boy signs on. What follows is an overly idyllic and somewhat sappy love story. Reality is completely suspended.
The setting is on and around the Allagash River in Maine, a place the author lovingly appreciates. Our heroine is an expert in corvids, crows and ravens. The mythology of these creatures becomes an indelible part of her character. The heroine eclipses her love interest who seems on dimensional and idealistically accommodating. The author’s best character is a group to which the heroine belongs, the Chungamunga Girls – an outward band type program for terminally ill girls. Between ritual, ceremony, and downright fun, the girls learn to honor the life they have, however capitated.
The author may have made the mistake of assuming one tragedy per book is sufficient to the reader. Therefore, he sanitized the remainder of the story to the point it is unrecognizable as real life!
Crow