RATING: GOOD
SPOILERS!!!
I have to say that I liked the part in which Maya is the narrator more than those from Rebecca's perspective. Rebecca tells us about her work after Maya was thought to be dead and her growing attraction to Adam. I can't understand how little feeling Rebecca and Adam show for Maya's death. When they happen to mention her, they say they love her, but that does not sound true to me. I imagine that the author had to add substance to this part, but I didn't like the fact that Rebecca fell for Adam in just a couple of weeks. And he showed even less love for Maya, laughing and joking. And they eventually admit to loving each other.
The part I enjoyed was Maya's account of her time in Last Run Shelter. At first, I thought it was some kind of shelter, but it is just a house where those living there seemed to belong to another area. The young woman who looks after Maya is Simmee, a seventten-year-old girl, who is heavily pregnant, and she lives with her boyfriend, Tully, a man who she tells Maya appeared in the woods when her granny was still alive, and then they became close. They live from what the land can give them: berries, fish and game, and they are isolated. With the storms they are even more cut off from the mainland. The only other neighbour is Lady Alice, a sixty-year-old black woman, who patched up Maya's leg.
Maya is desperate to go and at least, tell her sister and husband that she is well. Yet, the boat Tully used to rescue her was washed away, so they have to wait for Lady Alice's son to come visiting. Lady Alice had eight children who have left, and a few months ago she lost her last child, Jackson, when he had a hunting accident.
Maya and Simmee become close, and I have to say that I love Simmee's character. She is naive and innocent but at the same time smart and wise. Simmee expresses her fears to Maya about her baby, and she thinks she may die like her mother. Her mum died when she gave birth, and then her father blamed her and left. Maya tries to calm her down, and as time goes by, Maya starts confiding in Simmee. She tells her that she had three miscarriages and she had problems getting pregnant, and later Maya tells her that when she has the baby, Maya should take her because she could give the baby what Simmee can't. Maya tries to reason with her, and it seems that Simmee is persuaded.
Maya also tells her about the day her parents were killed and the reason she blames herself. We knew by that point that Zed, the man who killed her parents, was Rebecca's boyfriend, a wild young man, who her parents forbid her from seeing. We know that the reason why Rebecca blamed herself for her parents' death was that he kept seeing Zed behind their back. What we learn from Maya is that at fourteen she felt awkward and jealous of Rebecca, and when Zed approached her, she felt proud and appreciated, and she started seeing him in the park. They kissed sometimes, and then one day he forced herself on her, and after that, he blackmailed her, telling her that if she stopped seeing him, he would tell her parents. Then she discovered that she was pregnant, and Zed said that if she had an abortion, he would kill her parents. Maya's father noticed what was happening, and he was gentle and took her to the clinic for an abortion. It was when they came home that her mother ran to the car afraid, and Zed appeared and shot them. This is the first time Maya has told her secret, and Simmee is very good to her.
Maya gets angry when she learns that Larry, Lady Alice's son, has been to see her and neither Tully nor she has told him about her, wanting to leave the place, and both say that they thought she had changed her mind. Lady Alice even says that she should stay to assist Simmee to have her baby.
The surprise comes when one morning after Tully has gone to Lady Alice's, Simmee comes to Maya and tells her that the baby is coming, but first she needs to show her something. Maya doesn't understand and Simmee takes her to the river where Maya discovers that she has hidden the boat Tully thought had washed away. What Simmee tells her is that Maya needs to take the baby with her once it is born. Maya manages to take her back to the house and the baby is born. It is a boy, and soon she discovers that the boy is black. Simmee tells her that Tully is a terrible man who killed Jackson, Lady Alice's son when he suspected that Simmee and Jackson were more than friendly. Simme says that Tully will kill the baby if he discovers that it isn't his, and she says he killed Jackson, and he also confessed that he had killed someone else and that the police were after him. Maya agrees to take the baby, and Simmee tells her that she will make up something for Tully.
Maya manages to reach the boat, but Tully is behind him, and she says that the baby is sick and she needs to take him to hospital. As she manages to sail the boat, she thinks that Simmee will tell him that the boat floated back, but then she realises that he will see the rope and understand that Simmee deceived him. Maya decides to sail the boat to the shore and rushes to the house, and she manages to take Simmee to the boat, and both of them escape.
When they get to the hospital, Maya has decided that Simmee and the baby will go and live with her, and she will have to persuade Adam. When she calls Rebecca, her sister is shocked as well as Adam, and they drive there. After she introduces them to Simme and Baby Jack, they go to the cafeteria, and Maya expresses her wishes to become a foster mother to Simmee and her baby. Rebecca and Adam starts saying that it is a bad idea, and they talk as if she weren't present, and Maya tells them that she has made up her mind, and this time has made her realise that she wanted to have a baby to hold Adam to her, but she is done with more pregnancies and fertility treatments.
The prologue is a year later and Simmee and Jack are living with Maya. Things have changed. She and Adam are separated, and he and Rebecca have married and are expecting a baby. And Maya has applied to adopt a child. It seems things are good between them and there are no hard feelings. Lady Alice is now living with her son Larry, and she comes to see Simme and her grandson, and Tully is in prison. The police discovered that what Simmee told them was true. Tully strangled his girlfriend in a car park, and he was also sentenced for killing Jackson.
I enjoyed the book, but the part I felt uncomfortable reading was Rebecca and Adam.
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