The Awakening by Donna Boyd

Title: The Awakening

Author: Donna Boyd

Genre: Paranormal Mystery

Rating: * * * *

Publishers Date: Jul 1, 2003

Paperback: 208 pages

Publisher: Ballantine Books

ISBN: 0345462351

FTC Disclosure: PBS

Mary is an amnesiac who wakes up in a sanitarium with no sense of her past other than the dim memory of an incident that took the lives of her physician husband and daughter. Her psychotherapist at the sanitarium convinces her that her family isn't literally dead, and she moves into what she thinks is her lakeside house near Chapel Hill, N.C., hoping that its occupants -- a frustrated writer and his rebellious teenage daughter, both spending the summer there -- are her family.

It gradually becomes clear that Mary is a ghost. The daughter, Elsie, sees her but can't speak to her. The father, Paul, encounters the ghost and actually converses with her. When his wife, Penny, a prominent surgeon, joins her family at the summer house, she has terrifying dreams of blood splattered about the kitchen.

As Mary struggles to communicate with the house's isolated, unhappy occupants, they themselves fail to communicate with one another -- Paul is miserable over his flagging career; Penny, preoccupied with her work, barely has time for the family; and Elsie is bitterly estranged from both of them.

The author slowly reveals the ties between Mary's family and the one she has adopted, and Paul, Penny and Elsie begin to draw together as they research their mysterious visitor. This is a well-told tale with a shocking final revelation.

I got a hold of this book accidentally when looking for Kelley Armstrong’s book by the same name. It lay on my desk for several weeks until I picked it up when looking for a stand alone short read when going to Raleigh to move my daughter back to college. It turned a 3 hour ride into a delight as I delved into this great mystery. I’ve got to admit that I thought I had it figured out several times but the author deftly ran circles around me.  I can say little that doesn’t spoil the book but you will not be disappointed at all upon reading this short though amazingly complex story.