The Bookworm Sez by Terri Schlichenmeyer 

 

Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult

c.2014, Ballantine Books

$28/$30 Canada

416 pages

A good mother loves her child unconditionally. She cares for her little one, making sure the baby is dry, safe and comforted. She feeds her child and tends to him, no matter what time of day or night.

You can add to this list at will, because we all know what a good mother does. But, as in the new book Leaving Time by Jodi Picoult, a good mother does not abandon her child.

Thirteen-year-old Jenna Metcalf had a routine she kept every morning: She got dressed and logged on to the Department of Justice website to see if her mother had been found yet. A decade before, after one of the caretakers at their elephant sanctuary was trampled by accident, Jenna’s mother, Alice, was found nearby, unconscious, and taken to the hospital. When she regained her wits, Alice bolted from the building and disappeared. It haunted Jenna ever since.

What kind of mother abandons her little daughter? Was Alice hurt or killed? That was something Jenna absolutely needed to know – and so, old enough to have saved money from babysitting and birthday gifts, she hired a psychic and a detective.

Once upon a time, Virgil Stanhope was proud of his career. He’d been one of the lead detectives on the death of the elephant caretaker and the disappearance of Alice Metcalf – but he was having second thoughts. He knew back then he’d done a hack job. Why hadn’t he dug further into this case?

It had been a long time since The Dead had spoken to Serenity Jones, and she missed it. Ever since a brash, egotistical mistake ruined her TV career, she couldn’t get a human to talk to her, much less a spirit. So when Jenna showed up on Serenity’s doorstep, asking for help, and messages began whispering in Serenity’s head, what could the seer do but listen?

For most of her life, Alice Metcalf was devoted to the study of elephants. They were fascinating to her, and the ultimate reason her life had turned out as it had. She saw so many parallels between pachyderms and humans: love, joy, grief. Especially grief.

Got a calendar? Clear it. Cancel your plans. Once you’ve got Leaving Time in your hands, you won’t want to do anything but spend time with this book.

Through the voices of four main characters, author Jodi Picoult gives readers the kind of novel they’ve come to expect, but with a twist: There’s some mystery in this book. We aren’t sure what happened to Alice, if she’s a killer, a victim or something else.

That keeps-you-guessing factor appears in every Picoult novel, but in this book it’ll make you page back to see how you didn’t catch the clues and to marvel at where you went in the meantime. And I’m going to stop there. I can’t bear to ruin your enjoyment of unwrapping the layers in this excellent book. Just know that if you’ve got Leaving Time, you’ll only want everyone to leave you alone to read.

Terri Schlichenmeyer has been reading since she was three years old and never goes anywhere without a book. She lives on a hill in Wisconsin with two dogs and 11,000 books. Readers with questions or comments may write to Terri in care of this publication.