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Brannagh Maloney, a young woman who has fled her New Brunswick home for university and a new life, is hired as a cataloger on a naturalist expedition in northern Ontario. She has a lot to leave behind. Her childhood was marked by a series of family disappearances and two murders. In a far from normal home environment, her grandfather treated mental patients on the top floor of their house and there was a hint of madness in her own family. The delight and fulfilment she finds in her new wilderness life despite its physical challenges, falls apart when her lover Nikolai disappears. Has he abandoned her, or is his disappearance the result of foul play? Distraught, she reluctantly returns to St John for a reunion with three close women friends who pledged undying love and support for each other in childhood as the Tuatha-de-Danaans (the faeries of Ireland). However her return and the interaction with her friends revive the emotional trauma she had hoped to leave behind. Brannagh's current sense of abandonment by her lover makes her even more vulnerable to the unresolved mysteries surrounding the deaths of her parents and the nature of the family madness. The novel is more about the past than the present as it navigates back and forth through time. Brannagh is tempted to run away again as the reunion with her friends proves more challenging than comforting. She stays and answers concerning the past eventually emerge as she deals with the complex interrelationships between her friends and surviving family members. Leveille's descriptive writing evokes the beauty of nature and she creates an interesting cast of characters. For example, Brannagh who is really quite a feisty woman is also an artist whose bird sketches are an important contribution to the naturalist survey. Annie, perhaps her closest friend, had been one of her grandfather's patients and herself becomes a doctor. On the other hand, the "shadows" really take over in this book. There are almost too many aspects of the story to follow, particularly when dealing with the past. And the last minute resolution of the present mystery seems almost too good to be true. It is the quality of the writing that makes the read worthwhile. SHADOWS is Leveille's first novel. As a well written but convoluted Gothic tale involving a complex list of characters, it is a very promising debut.
Reviewed by Ann Pearson, April 2009
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Contact: Yvonne Klein (ymk@reviewingtheevidence.com)
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