Customer Reviews

Firefly Cloak: A Novel

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FIREFLY CLOAK by Sheri Reynolds
May 6, 2006

Amazon Rating: 4/5 stars


Having read THE RAPTURE OF CANAAN a number of years ago, I was quite excited to read and review FIREFLY CLOAK by Sheri Reynolds and I was not disappointed. While the two stories are different, I think fans of the first book will enjoy this one. The novel is about a girl who, along with her younger brother Travis, is abandoned by her mother at a campsite when she is only eight years old, and Travis is only four. The book opens with this scene at the campsite and is treated as a flashback. Their mother's parents pick them up, and their maternal grandparents are now raising the two children. The story then moves forward to the present, where Tessa Lee is a teenager, Travis has passed away, and she is on her way to finding her long lost mother who apparently had been living not too far away all this time.

I loved FIREFLY CLOAK (the title comes from the cloak that Sheila, their mother, leaves behind with the children). Sheri Reynolds has a way of writing with such beautiful prose. She did a good job at depicting the pain of abandonment that young Tessa Lee grows up with, while at the same time she yearns to see her mother again, to be reunited with the woman that gave birth to her. The grandmother, Lil, tries to raise Tessa Lee in a way that she can atone for her mistakes she made with her daughter, Sheila. She rules with a strict set of beliefs, mostly based on her rigid religious commitments, but at the same time she wonders if it was this same thinking that caused Sheila to run away at a young age, the start of her spiral downward.

And that brings us to Sheila, whose life has been one big mess after another. The man she ran away with was another fly by night relationship, and since those days Sheila did whatever she could to make a living, even turning tricks. But during all those years, she hasn't forgotten her children. Her story is told in-between the present story and the flashbacks of Tessa Lee's life, and it's not pretty. Between Lil's story, Tessa Lee's, and Sheila's, the reader will get a good picture of what their lives were like and what brought them all back together. The mystery of Travis' death will also be revealed to the reader, something that had me curious all the way up to the end. FIREFLY CLOAK is a somewhat tragic story and at the same time a coming of age tale that the reader will enjoy. I hope to see more by Sheri Reynolds. Her books are always something special and tend to remain in my mind for a long time.

I love a book that you blaze through in one day and weep when it's over. Both because it's poignant, beautiful and true, and because the writing humbles you with its exquisiteness.

Firefly Cloak by Sheri Reynolds is such a book.

Along with the Oprah hit Rapture of Canaan, Ms. Reynolds' excellent backlist includes the novels Bitterroot Landing and A Gracious Plenty. This latest offering shines amidst such quality work, and is sure to more than satisfy her longtime readers.

If you haven't sampled this author's work before, prepare yourself for a gorgeous, unforgettable read. You won't be disappointed.

Seven years ago in Alabama addict Sheila left behind her two sleeping preadolescent children at a campground to run off with her latest loser. When the older of the two youngsters, eight-year-old Tessa Lee awakens, she finds her toddler brother Travis roaming by himself with a telephone phone number marked by a magic marker on his back and a colorful cloak adorned with fireflies wrapped around him.

Several years later, fifteen years old Tessa Lee has lived with her maternal grandparents especially grandma Lil since the desertion incident, but Travis has since died. When Tessa Lee learns that her mother works as a mermaid at a Massachusetts boardwalk museum she decides to confront her mom expecting a valid reason for her leaving her two children behind. Tessa Lee runs to Massachusetts, but the woman she used to call mom, is not the same; instead Sheila is a broken addict and offers little in the way of explanation. Will the child leave the mother this time as the grandmother worries she will fail for the third time as she believes she has with Sheila and Travis.

This is an insightful family drama that targets highs school students and their parents with a deep tale. The story line does not hold back when it comes to the three key women especially the harmful behavior of Sheila (to herself as much as her children); the desperate obsession to know why by Tessa Lee who feels guilt over her sibling's death; and Lil who takes responsibility for failing Shelia. The interrelationships that include the negative make for an insightful character study.

Harriet Klausner

When Tessa Lee was eight years old and her brother Travis was four, their mother Sheila abondoned them. She left them sleeping in a tent while she ran off with the boyfriend du jour, leaving behind a phone number written in Magic Marker on Travis's back. The number, it turned out, belonged to Sheila's parents, who lived not two hours away in a "mobile city."

Now, seven years later, Travis is dead, and so is Tessa Lee's grandfather. While Tessa Lee's relationship with her grandmother Lil is undeniably strong, Tessa Lee can't stop thinking about her momma, can't stop obsessing over why she left. She clings to Sheila's old firefly cloak, the only physical thing she has left to remember her momma by. When she learns that Sheila may be working as a mermaid at a novelty museum by the shore, she jumps at the opportunity to get some answers. Tessa Lee hitchhikes the two hours to the Fantasies of the Boardwalk museum, and sure enough, her momma is there behind a pane of glass, reclining in a conch shell, her tail swinging gracefully over the side, whispering seductive instructions to passing patrons. Sheila looks downtrodden, fragile, broken, hollow, nothing like the momma Tessa Lee remembers. And when Sheila recognizes Tessa Lee, she does the only thing she knows how to do: She runs.

Over the next 200 pages, the lives of three remarkable women are revealed in Sheri Reynolds' luscious prose. Tessa Lee, Lil, and Sheila have three very different lives and personalities; in fact, the only thing they have in common is each other. Each woman's story is alternately heartbreaking and heartwarming, repulsive and remarkably touching. Lil, Tessa Lee, and Sheila are soulful and strong, believable and brave, heartbreakingly damaged and irrefutably human characters. The relationship between Tessa Lee and Lil is the best part of FIREFLY CLOAK, in my opinion; it's a beautiful relationship, one filled with mutual respect and unspoken understanding. The atmosphere of the novel is rich with Southern charm, and the prose has moments of pure genius. FIREFLY CLOAK is a sad novel, but one with a redemptive, perfectly-nuanced and satisfying conclusion.

FIREFLY CLOAK is a multi-generational story of love, loss, and forgiveness. At its most elemental, it's a story about the unbreakable bonds between mothers and daughters that not even time, distance, and cruelty can puncture. Sheri Reynolds' latest novel is a real winner, perceptive and beautiful and utterly affecting. You'll get through this relatively small book quickly -- but the characters and the writing will resound with you for a long time. Definitely recommended!

In this forceful tale of mothers and daughters and grandmothers, accomplished author Sheri Reynolds sets her tale in a nameless town on the coast of Alabama. While a middle-aged woman struggles to survive hand-to-mouth, battling her drug and alcohol addictions, and trying to escape her past, her teenage daughter aches to find her.

Tessa Lee is only eight years old when Shelia, her drunken mother runs off to Massachusetts, inexplicably abandoning Tessa Lee and her baby brother Travis at a camping ground. The only thing Shelia leaves behind is the two-room tent where they slept, her firefly cloak, and her grandmother's phone number hurriedly scrawled on Travis's naked back.

Given no choice but to live with grandma Lil, the years slowly pass, with Tessa Lee determined to travel Massachusetts to find her mother. Seven years later, she eventually does find her momma, but she isn't in New England. She's actually been living two hours away up the beach working as a mermaid in Fantasies of the Boardwalk, a wax museum on the ramshackle boardwalk strip.

Tessa Lee is aghast that after all this time, her own mother never came to a single dance recital or ball game, never called her or even acknowledged that Tessa Lee or her brother even existed. When Tessa Lee eventually visits her mother, Sheila initially denies she ever had children - she's attempted made a whole new life for herself, has no idea what happened to them, and her only priority now is survival.

But then Tessa Lee shows Sheila the firefly cloak. Incensed she demands that this young girl leave. But she also realizes that it is her daughter who has come back, looking like Sheila from another time, "before she went under, before she drowned." Suddenly, the great wash of her mistakes, "all of them come rushing out, the sour years and the bad decisions," and she runs away from her job, once again abandoning Tessa Lee.

Lil, following on the heals of Tessa Lee, frantically attempts to find her granddaughter, whilst Tessa Lee falls in with and makes friends with a young counter-culture boy with multiple piercings and green hair. For her part, Sheila opts out, finding herself hostage in a ramshackle home, battling a severe case of the shingles. Her journey is one of confronting her interior and exterior pain, as constantly fights the urge to forget by getting high.

Reynolds beautifully charts each character, the viewpoint always altering, as Lil, Sheila and Tessa Lee search for salvation, and for each other. Damaged and emotionally bent, Sheila has spent a life moving from local welfare offices to cleaning hotel rooms, traveling from place to place and from town to town as the rent comes due. Whenever she tried to get clean, her fears got in the way and she ended up smoking her paycheck. Now she can't stand the memories, "one failure after the next and all the accusations."

Lil has also suffered tragedy. With her husband Lewis gone, dying prematurely, she wonders where all the years have gone and why Sheila transformed from a sweet little girl, a loving child who rode on her daddy's tractor, into a no-good drug user.

A committed Christian, Lil remains convinced God would never give her anything she couldn't handle, and she takes solace in her guardian angels. Her crafts are her source of pride - her toilet paper dolls, her hand-painted napkin holders, and her seashell wreaths - and over the years she's learnt how to cope by concentrating on the facts, just looking at what's placed was right in front of her.

Perhaps it is the young Tessa Lee who suffers the most. Deprived of a mother, she fears the past, yet she also faces an uncertain future - she wants to be able to blend in, but she also wants the option of standing out - in typical teenage fashion she decides to be rebellious by having her nipple pierced. As her own desires fight against each other, she feels stronger by putting on her firefly clock, it gives her something to cloak herself with and makes her feel safe.

Beautiful and perceptive, Firefly Cloak is all about family, love and redemption; it's where the darkest moments can come at the strangest times and where the inexpressible bonds between mothers and daughters are always there, no matter what fragile misjudgments, and careless conclusions they might make in life.

Lil, Sheila, and Tessa Lee are totally human, damaged, delicate and even brave and their respective journeys inhabit that undefined space between the ordinary and the magical, between the everyday and the magnificent. Mike Leonard June 06.

Is hard enough but when your mother leaves you and your brother, it can be even tougher. Tessa Lee and her brother Travis wake up one morning to have their mother gone and a number written on Travis. It is her Granny's number. They live with their grandparents. Two tragedies happen close together, leaving Tessa Lee wanting to find her mom. She does find her however, but her mom runs away before Tessa Lee has the chance to talk to her. Tessa Lee is a strong character, with a good spirit. I love the idea of the fireflies in the story. I won't give the ending away, but this book will clutch you and won't let go.

Ms. Reynolds does not disappoint with this new novel. Having read her previous works, I was happy to see another book to add to her list of successes!

The characters are so life-like. You can feel the pain of Tessa Lee and the anguish and heartache that is part of her daily life. Her grandmother, Lil, is another strong person, one who believes strongly in God and takes on daily challenges with strength and love. Shelia; poor, sad, white-trash, confused Shelia, is another great character.

Don't miss this book. It is a quick, easy read. You will root for Tessa Lee and marvel at the silent courage she has that helps her deal with her life.

This is a great book for you to read and to tell ALL of your friends about. Don't miss it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This is the story of a young girl and her brother who are abandoned by their mother and left to be raised by the mother's parents. After losing her brother, the girl makes an effort to find her mother and notify her of the death. Although I enjoyed the story, it was troubling to me as I don't like to think about how the sad lives some people are forced to live due to circumstances beyond their control. I have read other books by Reynolds that I would rate 5 star easily, but rated this one 4 star as I would have liked to have had a little better wrap up at the end.

Sheri Reynolds is the author of one of my all time favorite books The Rapture of Canaan. I was looking forward to Firefly Cloak and am sorry to say I was disappointed.

When Tessa Lee Birch was 9 years old her mother abandoned her and her 3 year old brother Travis, leaving them at a campsite with the phone number of their grandparents written in magic marker on Travis' back. The only item Sheila leaves behind is a cloak decorated with embroidered fireflies, which Tessa Lee wraps herself in.

Skip ahead seven years and Tessa Lee has run away from the home she had been living in with her grandmother Lil, in search of her mother who has been seen working at a nearby boardwalk amusement park. When Tessa confronts her mother, and tells her something terrible has happened, Sheila denies being Tessa Lee's mom and disappears once again. Returning home Tessa Lee must come to face some hard truths about her mother and face the loss of her mother, her grandfather and ultimately Travis.

The story had a lot of promise, looking at abandonment, death, addiction and family ties, forgiveness and redemption. The problems with the tale begin with the characters. Tessa Lee is 16 yet at times thinks and says things more appropriate for a 10 year old, perhaps to show that part of Tessa is still that little girl that Sheila deserted, but it just didn't ring true. The next problem is Sheila, a character I had no sympathy for. Reynolds does not shy away from the terrible things drug addiction can do to her a person, yet I never felt anything for this woman except pity tinged with disgust.

I enjoyed Lil, Sheila's mom and Tessa Lee and Travis' grandmother, a strong woman, set in her ways, yet starting to change her stern outlook on life and someone who would do anything to help Tessa Lee and Sheila too. The mystery of what happened to Travis was dragged out a little too long and the ending of the book was littered with coincidences so in the end it was just an average book, lacking that spark that made The Rapture of Canaan so wonderful.

The other reviewers have said pretty much everything about this book. It's an interesting tale which covers a broad range of life lessons; coming of age, abstinence, drug and alcohol abuse, racism, prostitution, paranoid schizophrenia, etc... The book is very well written; Reynolds no doubt has a true gift for writing. BUT... the story did not grab me like other "great" books I have read. I never felt like I had to get to the next part of the story.

See, to me, a great book is one that I mourn once it is over because I don't want the story to end. This book never felt like that to me. I enjoyed the story but I was ready to move on to something else by the end.

Overall, it was a good experience to me but I enjoyed "The rapture of Canaan" much more. Thanks for reading my two cents.