More Than Sorrow

July 2, 2012
Twin tales sit awkwardly beside one another in this story of a Canadian farmhouse with secrets to tell from Delaney (Among the Departed). Hannah Manning, who’s recovering at her sister’s farm in Prince Edward County, Ont., from a brain injury incurred as a reporter in Afghanistan, starts having blackouts whenever she goes into the root cellar. During the blackouts, Hannah has visions of a previous resident, Maggie Macgregor, whose life degenerated into poverty and servitude after her Loyalist husband was killed during the American Revolution. Meanwhile, Hannah begins to take walks with Hila Popalzai, an Afghan woman who bears scars of war but never speaks of her past. When Hila is murdered, the police insist that Hannah knows more about the crime than she does. The modern-day suspense plot resolves with a satisfyingly tense scene that brings the two strands subtly together, but otherwise the historical section, despite its related themes, might as well be a separate book.

August 15, 2012
The author of the British Columbian cozies starring Constable Molly Smith (Among the Departed, 2011, etc.) moves east to Lake Ontario, where a considerably more beset heroine must confront demons without and within. Toronto journalist Hannah Manning was at the top of her game when she fell victim to an IED in Afghanistan. Now she's unable to work or drive or even live on her own. Living for the moment with her sister, Joanne and her husband, Jake Stewart, she finds life on J & J Organic Farms, on the island of Prince Edward County, predictable and slow, but still challenging for her and Omar, the name she's given her disabling headaches. There's not much diversion within walking distance of the farm, so Hannah is especially eager to befriend Hila Popalzai, a shy Afghan refugee who's been offered shelter by the farm's neighbors, Maude and Grant Harrison. And she takes considerable interest in some old papers Joanne has found in the house. Hannah sees in the story of Maggie Macgregor, the widow of a Loyalist sympathizer during the American Revolution, a mirror of her own. Taken in by her late husband's cousin, Nathanial, Maggie becomes little more than a servant in a household not her own. Hannah's nagging questions about her new life--is she only imagining the woman's voice she hears in the root cellar? Will Omar ever quiet down for good?--are abruptly upstaged when Hila disappears and is found dead. Hannah doesn't know just how instrumental Maggie, dead over 200 years, will be in resolving the mystery. An absorbing whodunit-cum-flashbacks whose so-so mystery is redeemed by a deft use of historical parallels.

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Starred review from August 1, 2012

War correspondent Hannah Manning is fighting to recover from a severe brain injury while staying with her sister's family on their Ontario farm. Hannah feels useless; she sleeps, she has terrifying visions, and most problematic, she suffers from long blackouts. Her niece, however, adores her and introduces Hannah to their neighbor, Hila, an Afghani refugee who is being sponsored by a local couple. When Hila disappears and her corpse is found in the woods days later, Hannah becomes a person of interest. Military intelligence is brought in for interrogations, and Hannah knows in her gut that something sinister is at work. Concurrently, Hannah channels visions of a ghostly woman whenever she goes into her family's root cellar; this story goes back into the late 1700s, when American colonists loyal to the British crown fled the newly established United States. VERDICT In a change of pace from her Con. Molly Smith mysteries (Among the Departed), Delany has written a splendid Gothic thriller with a theme of strong women throughout history. Readers will be captivated by the haunted root cellar and how Delany contrasted one woman's struggles in the past with the plight of contemporary refugees. Match with Deborah Lawrenson's The Lantern or Katherine Howe's The Physick Book of Deliverance Dane.

Copyright 2012 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

August 1, 2012
Hannah Manning is a foreign correspondent in Afghanistan for a major Canadian newspaper when an IED causes her traumatic brain injury, also killing her photographer lover and causing her to miscarry their child. Unable to live independently months later, with disabling headaches among her limitations, she's recuperating on her sister's family farm in Prince Edward County, Ontario. Here she befriends Hila, an Afghan woman disfigured when the rest of her family was assassinated, who is now staying with neighbors who have retired from the foreign service. When Hila disappears and is found murdered, Hannah finds herself a suspectshe's been suffering from blackouts and has no alibi. Meanwhile, she learns about the family farm's history and senses a connection to one of its eighteenth-century residents. Delany, author of the Constable Molly Smith series, blends current events with the stories of American loyalists who were relocated to Canada after the Revolution, adding a touch of the supernatural. The contemporary mystery works fine, but the history angle seems forced and overloads the plot.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)