Mormama

April 3, 2017
Veteran novelist Reed returns to her Southern roots in this unsatisfying gothic fantasy, a follow-up to 2015’s Where. Theo and his mother, Lane, are forced to return to the crumbling ancestral house in Jacksonville, Fla., where Lane’s three widowed aunts still dwell. Theo quickly realizes there are two more occupants of the house: Dell, an itinerant man with amnesia who has taken up squatting in the basement, and the titular Mormama, the long-dead matriarch of the family. While Lane looks for a job and a way out, and Theo ignores Mormama’s warnings about the house’s fatal effect on the family’s boys, Dell tries to understand what his connection is to the house and digs deeper into its secrets. Despite the intriguing promise of a good ghost tale, the story fails to fuse together, and it ends with no resolution or offer of clarity. Instead, the house’s ancient histories are retold by a dozen different voices, retreading the same ground until the reader feels as trapped as the characters. Agent: John Silbersack, Trident Media Group.

May 1, 2017
The only words of greeting Charlotte Robicheaux received when she arrived to take care of her spiteful daughter's many children were an introduction from their father: This is Mormamaone more Mama than you need. That was in the early twentieth century, on the steps of an elaborate mansion. Many years and generations later, single mother Lane is forced to move herself and her son, Theo, back into the ancestral home until she can find a jobbut will they survive the forces trapped inside? Reed's unique voice and style shine in this modern-day haunted-house tale. Told from many points of view, including the titular presence of Mormama, the novel explores the fate of an old mansion and the once-great family who lived inside. As accident and misfortune haunt generations of Ellis kin, the beautiful house itself begins to erode as well. In true southern gothic style, this tale is as much a ghost story as it is an allegory for the crumbling ways of the Old South.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)