The Splendor Falls [Hardcover]

Rosemary Clement-Moore (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 8, 2009

Can love last beyond the grave?

Sylvie Davis is a ballerina who can’t dance. A broken leg ended her career, but Sylvie’s pain runs deeper. What broke her heart was her father’s death, and what’s breaking her spirit is her mother’s remarriage—a union that’s only driven an even deeper wedge into their already tenuous relationship.

Uprooting her from her Manhattan apartment and shipping her to Alabama is her mother’s solution for Sylvie’s unhappiness. Her father’s cousin is restoring a family home in a town rich with her family’s history. And that’s where things start to get shady. As it turns out, her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew. More unnerving, though, are the two guys that she can’t stop thinking about. Shawn Maddox, the resident golden boy, seems to be perfect in every way. But Rhys—a handsome, mysterious foreign guest of her cousin’s—has a hold on her that she doesn’t quite understand.

Then she starts seeing things. Sylvie’s lost nearly everything—is she starting to lose her mind as well?

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Rosemary Clement-Moore lives and writes in Arlington, Texas. You can visit her at www.readrosemary.com.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Chapter 1


I wanted to hate Alabama, and nothing about my arrival disappointed me.

To be fair, there aren't many places that are easy to fall in love with in ninety-degree heat and eighty-five percent humidity. The bumpy flight from my connection in Atlanta, on a minuscule plane with doll-sized seats, hadn't helped. And that was before some snafu at the gate forced us to deplane on the tarmac and ride a bus to the terminal.

I'd been out of my walking cast for two weeks. My leg throbbed like a sadistic metronome as I limped down the concourse, and the toes of my right foot were swollen like fat pink cocktail weenies. Gigi's carrier bag hung from my shoulder, my fingers white-knuckled on the strap. It's bad enough to dread something; it's even worse when the pain of moving forward is more than metaphorical.

I could rest a minute, sit down between the barbecue restaurant and the souvenir shop with the Confederate flag coffee mugs. For that matter, I was inside the security checkpoint. No one could come in and get me without buying a plane ticket. I could just live here until my mother and her new husband got back from their honeymoon and reported me missing.

Granted, that wouldn't really help convince them I no longer needed to see a psychiatrist.

Settling for a brief rather than indefinite delay, I ducked into the bathroom. It was empty, so I put Gigi's bag on the counter while I splashed water on my face and reapplied some lip gloss. Makeup has never been a priority with me--at least not offstage, which means all the time now. But whenever my mother was losing a fight, she always took a moment to freshen her lipstick. Eventually I figured out this was how she bought time to think up an irrefutable argument.

I was merely stalling the rest of my life.

Gigi gave a soft yip of discontent. I unzipped the top of her carrier so that she could stick her head out, then filled her travel bowl from the half-empty Evian bottle in my purse. The dog took a few indifferent laps, then blinked at me. Her subtext seemed pretty clear: What the hell is your problem?
Was it wrong to have a problem with being shipped off like an unwanted parcel to stay with a relative I'd met only once? I vaguely remembered Cousin Paula from Dad's funeral, pressing my mother's hand in gentle sympathy, even though Mother and Dad had been divorced for three years. But as she'd said on the phone, in her Scarlett O'Hara accent, "Kin is kin," and she was happy to have me visit.

Maybe I shouldn't be dreading this. These were my father's family. This was my chance to learn where he came from, because Dad had never spoken much about his background. Which raised the possibility that he might have left Alabama to get away from these people.

A thin blonde wheeled her carry-on into the restroom. Gigi pricked her ears forward adorably, but the woman just shot the dog carrier a dirty look before disappearing with a sniff into the handicapped stall. It was as though thinking about my mother had invoked her eviler twin.

I should correct that. My mother is not evil. She's merely self-absorbed. I can be, too.

For sixteen years, our self-interests coincided more often than not. I lived to dance, and she loved having a ballet prodigy for a daughter. So her lack of maternal instinct didn't really affect me until The Accident (it was hard not to think of it in capital letters) ended my skyrocketing career right as it left the atmosphere.

The Accident had also turned me into a child again. I'd been a professional dancer. I'd traveled to Europe and Asia with the company. Nine months of surgery, casts and titanium rods later, I was a seventeen-year-old "unaccompanied minor"--thanks a lot, Delta Air Lines--pawned off on distant relatives to be babysat.

The infuriating thing was, Mother knew very well how self-sufficient I was, because she'd taken full advantage of it while dating her new husband. I think if it had been up to her, she would have left me on my own while she went off on her two-week honeymoon.

But "Dr. Steve" hadn't considered it an option. I was emotionally fragile, at a crossroads, major cognitive realignment, blah blah blah. God, I hated shrinks.

He wasn't even my shrink, just my new stepfather.

So, I couldn't be left alone for two weeks in our Upper West Side apartment with only Gigi, the security staff, the doorman and all the take-out food in Manhattan for company.

It would do me good, he said, to get away from the City, the reminders of my old life, and have a change of scenery.

The unspoken thread in this pronounced sentence was that the godforsaken wilderness of the Deep South was the perfect place for me to dry out. A drastic measure, just because I drank myself unconscious at their wedding. Imagine what he would have suggested if he knew about the hallucinations.

* * *

If I hadn't broken my leg, Mother wouldn't have married Dr. Steven Blakely. She'd known him casually through one of her arts organizations, and since he was a premier child psychologist, she'd called him after The Accident. Dr. Steve had referred me to his colleague one floor down, and asked my mother out to dinner and a show.

They were married while I was still in a walking cast, but Mother insisted that I process down the aisle with the wedding party. That wouldn't have been a big deal if she had gotten married in an intimate little chapel like a normaldivorcee of . . . let's just say thirty-nine. But eighteen years ago, she and my dad had eloped; maybe she thought a big wedding would make marriage stick the second time around.

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 528 pages
• Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers; First Edition edition (September 8, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385736908
• ISBN-13: 978-0385736909
• Product Dimensions: 5.9 x 1.6 x 8.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #731,029 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Rosemary Clement-Moore is a native Texan, who's eclectic resume includes jobs as a telephone operator, Chuck E. Cheese costumed character, ranch hand, dog groomer, wedding singer, hair model, actress, stage-hand, director, and playwright. She now puts her drama queen skills to use writing smart, funny supernatural mystery novels. She loves dogs, horses, sailing, vintage fashion, history, old movies, Gilbert and Sullivan, Guitar Hero, BBC America, and books. Lots and lots of books. You can visit her webpage at www.rosemaryclementmoore.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fab New Book, October 27, 2009

By 

Candace Havens - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Splendor Falls (Hardcover)

I'm a big fan of Rosemary Clement Moore's writing and she doesn't disappoint with her new book The Splendor Falls. The story follows Sylvie, a young dancer who's dreams are crushed when she breaks her leg. She's sent to heal in Alabama, a place where she knows no one. Her cousin is restoring the family home, and as welcoming as she is, Sylvie just wants to go home. But there's a dark and mysterious stranger, who makes her curious. And when strange things start happening, Sylvie can't help but be intrigued, and perhaps a little frightened. It might be a YA, but adults will enjoy this too!

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Splendor Falls? More Like SPLENDID Falls,... it was that great., October 19, 2009

By 

J. Harrington "Big Yellow Chicken" (Dallas, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Splendor Falls (Hardcover)

I read this book because I am a huge fan of the author's previous works, and I was not disappointed. It's a little darker and a little more mystical than her Maggie Quinn Series, but the words popped off the page, and the descriptions in the story made you feel like you were living in a creepy old Haunted Mansion! The characters were gritty, and totally imperfect (except when they needed to be too perfect, then they totally were.) This is a book I would recommend to any avid reader of dark, but still totally fun YA. Buy it now!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Southern gothic...a new favorite!, December 21, 2009

By 

AC (USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Splendor Falls (Hardcover)

After a devastatingly embarrassing and crippling accident onstage that handicaps her leg and permanently throws her plans of being a prima ballerina astray (who's ever heard of a one-legged ballerina, anyways?), Sylvie Davis is at a loss in regards to what to make of the rest of her life. When she accidentally gets drunk at a wedding (her mindset being: what the heck, I'm crippled and my life sucks so why not drink a bit and oopsies-) and sees things that shouldn't be there (which, by the way, was a very cool thing that she sees, historical freak that I am!), her mom and stepfather-to-be sends her to the deep South (Alabama, to her dad's family's old plantation-turned-bed & breakfast, to be exact) to "dry out". But dry out she does not. Instead, she is faced with a situation more dire than anything that might have happened had she stayed in New York, one that invokes terrifying chills and things that go bump at night. Once arrived at Bluestone Hill, the old family home, she is faced with a plethora of mysteries. Of what kind, you ask? All kinds! Boys, ghosts, and century-old questions.

THE SPLENDOR FALLS has got to be one of my favorite books ever. It's definitely a slow read at first, but I found it enchanting to read about the workings of a small Southern town and a Manhattan trust-fund girl like Sylvie trying to find her place in such a setting. People, there are food descriptions in this book. Good, mouth-watering Southern dishes that made my stomach rumble in envy as I read. And aside from the delectable foods, Clement-Moore sprinkles in perfect helpings of romance and love-triangle dilemma and bone-chilling ghosties. The chapters alternate between idyllic and heart-pounding--there were several chapters interspersed throughout the story that were downright creepy. I could imagine the ghosts and eerie whispers of things long past as Sylvie experienced them, leaving me jumpy at the slightest noise and nervously checking over my shoulder every so often to assure my paranoid self that no, there were no sinister ghosts lurking in the shadowy corners of my room (unlike Sylvie's room...). Brrr.

The two probable love interests are the right amounts of charming and infuriating; I enjoyed Sylvie's interactions with both of them, in part because thankfully Sylvie does not act like a love-smitten fool in their presence, as a great deal of YA female characters are inclined to do these days. Sylvie, the main character, felt like a truly fleshed-out character- cynical, perhaps, and grumpy at times- but I'd like to think that is the mark of a true teenager. Clement-Moore does such a good job establishing her person that I felt like she was a real human, someone who I could understand and relate to being a teenager myself. Each and every character had a distinctly unique personality, so I had no trouble distinguishing them. Like I previously mentioned, the book starts out at a stately pace, but in the last approximate 25% of the book, the speed picks up and it's nonstop action after confrontation after action!

The only complaint-and a small one at that-that I have with this book is that Clement-Moore puts a little too much emphasis on Sylvie's dog, Gigi, than I'd like. There was an overdose of dog-related occurrences that worked as a plot device and no doubt will appeal to dog lovers, but alas, being a non-dog-owner myself, I found to be a bit tiring after a while. But don't let that detract you from the book- it is a real gem!

Overall, a supremely wonderful, well-researched, and fantastically developed book. I really didn't want it to end, but it did...that was the only bad part of the book.