Hush, Little Baby

September 18, 2006
Ten-year-old, bespectacled Eira Morgan is burdened with both an eye patch and a charismatic, exotic older half-sister, Phyllis. Along with their asthmatic younger brother, David, the sisters spend a transformative summer in the English countryside with Aunt Maggie and Uncle Huw while their parents study birds in Fiji. Davies's uneven second novel (after The Madness of Love
) cuts back and forth between that summer and Eira's lonely present: she's 36, lives by herself, pines for her married boss at the museum where she works and fantasizes about getting married and having a baby. One day she discovers an abandoned baby in a box on the museum's steps and delivers the foundling to the nearest hospital—then finds herself bereft and flashing back to the summer when she discovered anorexic Phyllis was having an affair with Aunt Maggie and Uncle Huw's boarder, Edward Furnace. Phyllis, of course, becomes pregnant, and things end tragically after Eira interferes. The flashbacks are satisfying and lushly atmospheric, but the adult Eira plot lacks momentum, and she amounts to little more than her description of herself as "the sad woman with the green dress and the bright red lips."

October 15, 2006
In this British romanceDaviess second after "The Madness of Love"Eiras present life as a single museum worker approaching middle age with a crush on her married boss is intertwined with flashbacks to a traumatic childhood vacation at the country home of her Aunt Maggie and Uncle Hue. The discovery of an abandoned baby and its return to its teenage mother force Eira to reexamine her admired older sisters hidden adolescent pregnancy with a tragic end while their parents vacationed in Fiji. Meanwhile, the happy pregnancy of Daisy, her bosss wife, only fuels Eiras depression over her life and childlessness. At times both dark and maudlin, this novel mixes Gothic elements with psychological self-examination in a spottily entertaining blend. For extensive romance collections."Ann H. Fisher, Radford P.L., VA"

Copyright 2006 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 15, 2006
Thirty-six-year-old Eira is lonely, in love with her happily married boss, and desperate for a baby. When she finds an abandoned infant, she is flung into a depression. Subsequent events force her to come to terms with the childhood tragedy that caused the death of her older sister. In alternating chapters we learn about Eira's current life and the adolescent summer that changed her and her family. The modern-day chapters are told in the third person, and the chapters about Eira as an adolescent are in first person. The story of Eira's childhood is unique and believably told. However, the adult Eira has very little in common with the spirited adolescent character, and at 36 she seems a little young for the spinster role. Davies (" The Madness of Love," 2005) tries to combine chick lit, mystery, and melodrama. She is intermittently successful. A conversation with Davies and book-club questions are appended.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2006, American Library Association.)