Like her father, Cass Brooks is a "diviner." She communicates with the earth to reveal hidden caches of water for drought-plagued neighbors. That's her day job. However, she also plays host to a barrage of disturbing "forevisions" that started when as a child she correctly predicted the death of her teenage brother, Chris. In the first pages of this latest from Morrow (Ariel's Crossing), Cass is beginning to confuse fact and vision. She finds a murdered girl in the woods. Or does she? The sheriff finds nothing: no body, no footprints, no evidence. Then a different girl who reminds Cass of herself surfaces in those same woods, alive but shaken. The key to saving the girl (whoever she is and whether she needs saving), Cass thinks, might be buried in the past with Chris and their childhood secrets. Verdict This meditation on childhood trauma is a hybrid: half suspense, half "literary" fiction. Unfortunately, the mystery is often predictable, but the prose (despite some trying descriptions of foliage and birds) supersedes the plot. It's Katherine Howe meets John Irving and comes highly recommended by Joyce Carol Oates, so buy accordingly.-Stephen Morrow, Ohio Univ., Athens (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Cassandra Brooks, who lives in rural upstate New York with her twin sons, ekes out a living substitute teaching and dowsing, or divining, in Morrow's solid gothic-infused tale of family secrets. As a child, Cassandra discovered she possessed the gift to divine water and have "forevisions" of the future, including one the night her beloved older brother, Christopher, was killed. While on a divining job for a new property development, Cassandra sees the body of a teenage girl hanging from a tree, but when she returns with the police, there's no trace of the body. Cassandra wonders what her vision means, especially after a runaway girl, Laura Bryant, surfaces and claims she was kidnapped. Even though the vision dredges up bittersweet memories of Christopher, Cassandra is determined to help Laura, who's in real danger. Morrow (Ariel's Crossing) beautifully evokes Cassandra's inner turmoil, but those expecting a conventional whodunit may be disappointed. (Jan.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.