Saints in Limbo [Paperback]

River Jordan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 5, 2009

“River Jordan’s Saints in Limbo is a compelling story of the mysteries of existence and, specially, the mysteries of the human heart.”
–Ron Rash, author of Serena and Chemistry and Other Stories

“I lose myself in River’s writing–transported to a different time and place– and in this case,  to one that makes the ordinary mystical and magical. I give it FIVE diamonds in the Pulpwood Queen’s TIARA!”
–Kathy L. Patrick, founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs and author of The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara Wearing, Book Sharing Guide to Life

Ever since her husband Joe died, Velma True’s world has been limited to what she can see while clinging to one of the multicolored threads tied to the porch railing of her home outside Echo, Florida.

When a mysterious stranger appears at her door on her birthday and presents Velma with a special gift, she is rattled by the object’s ability to take her into her memories–a place where Joe still lives, her son Rudy is still young, unaffected by the world’s hardness, and the beginning is closer than the end. As secrets old and new come to light, Velma wonders if it’s possible to be unmoored from the past’s deep roots and find a reason to hope again.   
 
Praise for River Jordan

“[River Jordan’s] literary spice rack has everything you need to put together a good book.”
–Rick Bragg, author of All Over but the Shoutin’ and Ava’s Man

“River Jordan writes so beautifully.”
–Joshilyn Jackson, author of Gods in Alabama and The Girl Who Stopped Swimming

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Not much happens in the small town of Echo, Fla., especially to the spunky yet agoraphobic widow, Velma True. But when a mysterious storyteller steps out of the wind and up to her front door, his ordinary-looking birthday gift sends Velma on a breakneck journey over the landscape of her memory, even though she can't even cross her yard to the mailbox. The gift has its consequences and forces Velma to relive both her happiest and darkest moments, trapping her between what she has and what she wants. Even more troubling, something evil wants the gift for itself and threatens to take away Velma's home, family and dearest friends. In a wild mix of thriller, mystery, romance and drama, Jordan (The Gin Girl) unravels a complicated plot that sometimes knots up and often leaves loose ends unexplained. Too many side plots and mysteries tumble together and become confused. Despite these vagaries, Velma True's mystical adventure will speak to an audience interested in a thrilling, often touching gothic tale about conquering fear and regret with a stubborn, Southern love. (May)
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Review

Praise for Saints in Limbo

“River Jordan’s Saints in Limbo is a compelling story of the mysteries of existence and, especially, the mysteries of the human heart.”
–RON RASH, author of Serena and Chemistry and Other Stories

“River Jordan’s artful writing style is utterly captivating. Add to that the heartfelt, intriguing story line of Saints in Limbo, and you’re hooked.”
–T. LYNN OCEAN, author of Sweet Home Carolina and the Jersey Barnes Mysteries

“In the quiet of light and shadow, on what portends to be an ordinary day, miracles and magic envelop Velma True, a widow, a mother, and a lonely woman who does not suffer fools. Readers will care deeply about Velma’s life: her past, her present, her future, and her good heart. Saints in Limbo brims with truth and insists on hope. River Jordan has written a lyrical and relentlessly beautiful book.”
–CONNIE MAY FOWLER, author of Before Women Had Wings and The Problem with Murmur Lee

“Saints in Limbo is a lyrical and transcendent novel that will linger with me for years to come. I was entranced from start to finish.”
–KARIN GILLESPIE, author of the Bottom Dollar Girls series

“Strange as it sounds, River Jordan’s fascinating novel Saints in Limbo somehow reminded me of Walker Percy and Dean Koontz simultaneously. It’s that original. It’s that good. It’s a wise, funny, joyful, and deadly serious book. Saints in Limbo is the kind of story they ought to publish in leather-bound hardcover with gilded pages so you could leave it to your grandchildren.”
–ATHOL DICKSON, author of River Rising and Winter Haven

“Saints in Limbo is an elixir that combines two doses southern literary tradition and one dose magic realism. Jordan evokes elements of mystery and evil, wisdom and family, to make your heart surge and your skin tingle.”
–KIM PONDERS, author of The Last Blue Mile

“River Jordan’s words flat-out sing. Some pages of Saints in Limbo will soothe you with lullabies, others will reach inside you for the blues, but they’ll all pull you inside and slow your multitasking self down. Her stories court you to pace yourself and give them their due. It’s hard to close this novel without wondering why River Jordan isn’t a household name.”
–SHELLIE RUSHING TOMLINSON, author of Suck Your Stomach In and Put Some Color On:What Southern Mamas Tell Their Daughters That the Rest of Y’all Should Know Too and creator and host of All Things Southern

“Mystical and magically written, Saints in Limbo is a beautiful novel. With its vivid characters and lush language, readers will find themselves thinking of Augusta Trobaugh’s Resting in the Bosom of the Lamb.”
–MICHAEL MORRIS, author of A Place Called Wiregrass

“River Jordan writes about love’s triumph over fear, reconciliation, and dissolving ancient hurts in words as lyrical as a poem. Her characters wriggle into your heart frompage one and will stay there long after you’ve regretfully finished the last page. Saints in Limbo is not only a tribute to the power of place and community but a rollicking good read as well.”
–CHARLOTTE RAINS DIXON, director of The Writing Loft, Middle Tennessee State University

“River Jordan’s written words are as poetic and captivating as her name, and her story, Saints in Limbo, is as powerful and healing as the River Jordan itself.”
–DENISE HILDRETH, author of The Will of Wisteria

“River Jordan practically sings her characters to life. Saints in Limbo is a triumph of the spirit and a reminder that there’smuchmore to life than meets the eye. Read this book to remind yourself that heaven can be found right here, right now.”
–NICOLE SEITZ, author of A Hundred Years of Happiness, Trouble theWater, and The Spirit of Sweetgrass

“Saints in Limbo reminds me of the adage ‘Life is not about the destination but the journey.’ In this case it’s not about the ending of the book but the telling of the story! The journey in River Jordan’s latest book is to savor every word, every sentence, and every paragraph.”
–KATHY L. PATRICK, founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs and author of The Pulpwood Queens’ Tiara-Wearing, Book-Sharing Guide to Life

"River Jordan’s third novel is a Southern Gothic masterpiece." – Tina Fondren, Paste Magazine

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 352 pages
• Publisher: WaterBrook Press; Original edition (May 5, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307446700
• ISBN-13: 978-0307446701
• Product Dimensions: 5.2 x 0.8 x 8.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #749,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

River Jordan began her writing career as a playwright where her original works were produced, including Mama Jewels: Tales from Mullet Creek, Soul, Rhythm and Blues, and Virga. Ms. Jordan's first novel, The Gin Girl (Livingston Press, 2003), has garnered such high praise as "This author writes with a hard bitten confidence comparable to Ernest Hemingway. And yet, in the Southern tradition of William Faulkner, she can knit together sentences that can take your breath." Kirkus Reviews described her second novel, The Messenger of Magnolia Street, as "a beautifully written atmospheric tale." It was applauded as "a tale of wonder" by Southern Living, who chose the novel as their Selects feature for March 2006, and described by other reviewers as " a riveting, magical mystery" and "a remarkable book." Her third novel, Saints In Limbo has been painted by some of the finest fiction voices of today as "a lyrical and relentlessly beautiful book," and "a wise, funny, joyful and deadly serious book, written with a poet's multilayered sense of metaphor and meter and a page-turning sense of urgency," and reported by Paste Magazine as "a southern gothic masterpiece."
Her fourth novel, The Miracle of Mercy Land, arrives on September 7, 2010. Her first non-fiction work, Praying for Strangers, An Adventure of the Human Spirit will be published by Penguin/Berkley April 5, 2011.
Ms. Jordan teaches and speaks around the country on "The Power of Story", and produces and hosts the radio show Clearstory Radio from Nashville. When not traveling the back roads of America, River lives with her husband and their Great Pyrenees lap dog in Nashville, Tennessee.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Is it the rock, or is it the writing?, May 26, 2009

By 

Wiiildflowers4Jade (Nashville) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Saints in Limbo (Paperback)

River's writing is like a melody that you find yourself humming along to. Her words are brushstrokes that paint a picture so vivid that you know that place exists somewhere, that the characters are real people, and you've just been visiting them. Each character is a person in his or her own right, not just 2 dimensional props to help the story along. Each has strengths and weaknesses, flaws and redemptions.
"Saints in Limbo" is River Jordan's best yet out of truly great works. The main character, Velma, is a strong, steadfast old woman who seems a very unlikely person for a main character. She is mourning a recently lost husband, sorrowful over a seemingly lost son, and given up on a future that she will never have. Her own story seems to be winding down to it's end until a stranger gives her a gift that helps her relive it all again.
As her own story unfolds for her the second time, we are allowed to glimpse a life of quiet beauty and simple, strong love with roots so deep that the long years and even death can't shake them.
A something is out to steal her gift, a stranger is on her way home, mysteries unfold and people aren't everything they seem.
In this book you're invited to lay aside your prejudices and snap judgments, because people are just people and yet so much more. This is a story you'll want to read twice.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Great Story, May 19, 2009

By 

Carole Wilfong "faith one" (Panama City, Fl.) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saints in Limbo (Paperback)

Saints in Limbo is a wonderful journey into a fading past. River Jordan's characters are so vividly described that you feel you have known these people, and have interacted with them personally. She has a way of drawing you into her stories, so much so, that you not only do not want to put the book down, but don't want the story to end. Mystery runs through the pages and holds you to the end. Thank you River for another wonderful trip !

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Thriller with a Message, May 5, 2009

By 

Sam Sattler (Spring, Texas) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Saints in Limbo (Paperback)

In every sense of the word, Velma True's lifestyle on the outskirts of Echo, Florida, is an isolated one. The elderly woman has lost her husband, and her only child, Rudy, is a womanizer just barely aware of the day-to-day needs of his mother. Making things even harder, Velma suffers agoraphobia to such a degree that she can force herself out of her house only when her food supply runs dangerously low.

To Velma's great surprise, a stranger approaches her on her birthday and leaves her with an astounding gift, something that can transport her so deeply inside her memories that she is able to relive them exactly as they happened to her the first time. She finds somewhat to her dismay, however, that not all of her visited memories are good ones and that she is unable to choose the portion of her past into which she will be immersed. Most disturbing of all, Velma learns that something very evil is out there - and that it is willing to do whatever it takes to gain possession of her gift.

Velma is not at all happy with what she sees as the pointlessness of her life. She worries about her son's lack of ambition and his willingness to drift from one meaningless relationship to another. She knows that her oldest, and best, friend is growing impatient with her inability to go much more than a few feet from her front porch. Revisiting her past has filled her with regrets about what could have been and she has come to feel trapped "between what was and what is."

As Velma becomes more comfortable with what is happening to her, she is surprised to find herself filled with hope that she can release the past and change the "what is" part of her life. Things rush to a rousing climax as a young stranger makes her way to Echo on a surprising pilgrimage of her own, the forces of evil gather for a final showdown with Velma, and her son shows her that meaningful change is still possible for a man like him.

"Saints in Limbo," in an uncommon fusion of styles, is part traditional Southern novel, part Christian fiction, part romance novel, and part gothic horror novel. Surprisingly, the combination works well, and readers will find it to be a thrilling story with a touching message. It will particularly appeal, I think, to those who enjoy the Christian fiction genre.