The 100 Year Miracle

May 16, 2016
This tedious novel from Ream (Losing Clementine), featuring Rachel Bell, a biochemist and chronic-pain sufferer, chronicles her race to unlock the analgesic properties of a rare bioluminescent arthropod native to Washington's San Juan Islands before it can complete its six-day life cycle and fall dormant for another 100 years. Escalating doses of prescription drugs will kill Rachel within the year, so she's hoping the centuries-old legends are true and the tiny creatures contain a compound that can save her. Such research is outside the scope of her university-funded study, so Rachel sets up a private lab in the home of ailing island resident Harry Streatfield, who agrees to keep the scientist's after-hours project secret in return for access to her experimental painkiller. Ream squanders an intriguing premise on shallow characters, leaden pacing, and an unsatisfying conclusion. A tonally jarring subplot involving Harry's ex-wife, her affair with a younger man, and her restoration of a sailboat muddies the main story line and threatens to push the book out of thriller territory and into the realm of women's fiction. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary.

April 1, 2016
A novel of scientific intrigue set on an island in the Pacific Northwest. "A bright green glowing ribbon encircled the entire inlet like a water-bound version of the aurora borealis. The light came from the bioluminescent bodies of tiny arthropods, millions of them that pulsed in the shallow water. Their six-day life span was about to expire, and they were signaling one final time for a mate." These are the Artemia lucis, born only once a century, prized by the native people of Olloo'et Island for their hallucinogenic and analgesic effects when ingested. Dr. Rachel Bell is a member of a research team from the University of Washington that's come to study the phenomenon, but that's just her cover. Rachel suffers from devastating chronic pain, and from the moment she chokes down her first dose of hijacked arthropods--they taste like "a fish's ass"--she's determined to breed the little fellas in captivity, first to save her own life, then to change the world. In order to hide her secret experiments from her fellow researchers, she moves out of their camp and into the guest room of a classical composer named Harry Streatfield, a man in the throes of a disabling neurological disorder that makes him another candidate for fishy pain relief. Also bunking at Harry's is his ex-wife, Tilda, supposedly a former U.S. senator--this is one of several unconvincing plot points--who has come to take care of him. Ream (Losing Clementine, 2012) offers her three central characters little respite from misery: their pasts are scarred by tragedy, their presents are populated by jerks and villains, two of them are in constant pain, and the third is terminally cranky. They sure could use the miracle dangled by the book's title. A vivid setting, credible science, and flashes of dry wit aren't enough to balance the gloom of this not-so-thrilling thriller.

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May 15, 2016
Once every 100 years, a bay in Washington State fills with tiny luminescent creatures spawning eggs that will lie dormant for another century. A local Native American tribe, the Olloo'et, have always respected this phenomenon, warning that only the shamans were allowed to partake of the eerily glowing waters. They feared that the waterdespite supposed miraculous healing qualitiesproduced frightening hallucinations and opened a portal to the spirit realm. Scientist Rachel Bell is eager to break from her sanctioned research team in order to do her own experiments, desperately hoping that the water will bring her relief from constant, debilitating pain. Fellow researcher John, an Olloo'et descendant, warns her that she is on a dangerous path, but Rachel is too far under the water's spell. She draws in Harry, a local musician who suffers from a degenerative disease, and his estranged ex-wife. Tension mounts as the couple find themselves entwined in Rachel's machinations, and Harry discovers himself interacting with his dead daughter. Vividly drawn characters and an intriguing premise make this a good bet for readers who like gothic novels or literary suspense.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)