read by Lauren Ezzo
Unabridged audio (9:57)
2019 Lake Union Publishing
332 pgs.
Adult CRF
Finished 6/7/2019
Goodreads rating: 4.22 - 22,437 ratings
My rating: 4.5
First line/s: "The girl could be a changeling. She was almost invisible, her pale face, hoodie and pants fading into the twilit woods behind her. Her feet were bare. She stood motionless, one arm hooked around a hickory trunk , and she didn't move when the car crunched to the end of the gravel driveway and stopped a few yards away."
My comments: There might be a few very small spoilers in the following response to this book. Every now and then you read a story that is so touching and so different that you don't care as much about the coincidences and the too-good-to-be-true ending as you might usually. This was a charming story from beginning to end, where a broken, genius, - and I must say, with a bit of a rolling eye: manipulative - child wins all the good things she deserves. It's about people that aren't' as broken as they thought they were coming together to make things right. And make things work. I enjoyed everything about this book - the characters, the setting, and even the reality of too-stupid-to-be-real laws and child welfare rules. Highly recommended.
Goodreads synopsis: An Amazon Charts, Wall Street Journal, and Washington Postbestseller.
In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again.
After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.
The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child’s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay—just until she learns more about Ursa’s past.
Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren’t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children’s website anymore?
Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars.
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