Customer Reviews

Bone Dance

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Alex has never known her father. He left when she was born, leaving her mother and her Aunt Francine and her grandfather to take care of her. She was especially close to her grandfather all of her life. He was a spiritual man, speaking like the Native Americans did of the spirits in the land and its objects. Then he died, leaving Alex lonely, although he still visits her in the very vivid dreams she has.

Shortly after she turns seventeen, Alex finds out that the father she never knew has died. Furthermore, he has left her seventeen thousand dollars and a piece of land near a lake with a cabin on it.

Lonny lives with his stepfather on the land next to Alex' cabin. His stepfather usd to own the land Alex's father bought, and was disappoined when Lonny didn't seem to want it. He has bad feelings about the land, though. His mother died years before, and Lonny still thinks it was his fault, for digging up the bones of ancient Native Americans from a burial mound close to Alex's cabin. He also has strange dreams like Alex, dreams in which the Native Americans from the burial mound come out of the ground again.

In the middle of the summer, Alex finally comes to the cabin, to live there alone for a week and try to come to terms with her father's death and the fact that although she never met him, he left her this land. Lonny also has issues of his own to work out. Will the two of them be able to help each other?

I liked the parallelism of Lonny's and Alex's lives, especially the relationship each of them had with his or her single parent. I sometimes found myself lost in the story, though. It wasn't always clear what was a vision or a dream and what was reality, to I had trouble sorting out the plot sometimes.

This is one of most magical, moving, beautifully written novels I've read all year. I recommend it highly to adult readers as well as teenagers. It's a little gem.

This book was beautiful, and I have to say that Martha Brooks is one of my favorite authors. The strong sense of connection is part of what makes this book so good- and as a teenager, I have to say that Alex and Lonny are characters that I don't find at all hard to relate to. All in all, I loved it.

Between anguish and rebirth lies closure, a spiritual crossing point where healing takes place. In this evocatively told tale, author Martha Brooks offers an exquisite insight into the family circumstance and spiritual connections of Alexandra Marie Sinclair, and Lonny LaFreniere, the travellers on this journey.

The Lacs des Placottes Valley area of Alberta has been the site of the homestead for the LaFraniere family for several generations. Tom LaFreniere plans that Lonny, his stepson will one day own this land. This is also the place of an ancestral Indian burial mound, and once, Lonny disturbed it. Hard times and a need for money become the reasons that Tom LaFreniere accepts that he must sell it. The buyer is a solitary man who has spent his life on the move from one prairie town to another. He writes a letter that Lonny is supposed to mail, but doesn't. Unexpectedly the stranger dies and the land is left to a daughter he has never seen. Lonny is tormented in dreams by the spirt of his mother, and those whose bones are buried in the Indian mound. He is also disturbed by the image of a girl who sees straight through him!

Alexandra Marie Sinclair is loved and supported by her mother, her aunt, and her Cree grandfather. From him and his friend, the Old Raven Man, Alex is guided by a vision that sends her on a quest in search of truth about the man who was her father. As she sets foot on the former LaFreniere homestead, Lonny feels the spirits of the ancients moving him to reveal truths he has long suppressed.

This is a well written story that will remain in memory long after the final scene is read, and felt!