The Way of Women

May 17, 2004
The 1980 Mount St. Helens eruption provides the backdrop for this uneven exploration of the resiliency of women by bestselling inspirational novelist Snelling (The Healing Quilt
). The characters all have potential: Melissa "Mellie" Sedor and her husband, Harvey, are trying to afford the expensive treatments their small daughter, Lissa, needs to survive leukemia, and Harvey is prepared to make the ultimate sacrifice. Katheryn Sommers's depressed husband, David, and 10-year-old son, Brian, are off on a camping trip just as an eruption seems imminent. Capt. Mitchell Ross is hooked on danger and still has an eye for a beautiful girl—even if she's not his wife. Model-turned-photographer Jenn Stockton leaves New York to return to the mountain and revisit an old love. Cowlitz County Sheriff Frank McKenzie seeks to erase his recurring nightmare of his family's murder with plenty of bourbon. The lives of these characters all intersect, of course, when the volcano erupts. There's a promising metaphor for one woman's pregnancy in the volcano's "labor" pains, but the mountain's "point of view" presented throughout the book jars (" 'Creator of all things, I ache,' she screamed."). The pacing drags in the middle of the novel, and a particularly gruesome disclosure may startle readers. Laudably, Snelling does not offer a happily-ever-after pat ending, but readers may find themselves dissatisfied. Agent, Deirdre Knight.

January 1, 2005
Snelling, best known for her Red River of the North historical series, now tries her hand, more or less, at contemporary realism" . "By accident and deliberately, several characters congregate near Mount St. Helens in 1980, just before the mountain erupts. The most appealing of the group are Sheriff Frank McKenzie, a good man who keeps drowning his sorrows in booze, and Jen Stockton, a semifamous ex-model on the skids from drugs and too many men. Together, maybe they can cancel out each other's debilities and make a life. Other characters seek redemption in other ways, but they are all a bit overdrawn and sentimentalized, and Snelling's odd use of the mountain itself as a sentient character never clicks. But there is much entertaining lore about the eruption here, and while Snelling's characters may be predictable, they are also easy to root for. (Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)