The Tale of Halcyon Crane » (Unabridged, 10 CDs, 12 hours)

Wendy Webb is editor in chief of Duluth-Superior magazine. A journalist with two decades of experience, she lives in Minnesota. This is her first novel.

A young woman travels alone to a remote island to uncover a past she never knew was hers in this thrilling modern ghost story

When a mysterious letter lands in Hallie James’s mailbox, her life is upended. Hallie was raised by her loving father, having been told her mother died in a fire decades earlier. But it turns out that her mother, Madlyn, was alive until very recently. Why would Hallie’s father have taken her away from Madlyn? What really happened to her family thirty years ago?

In search of answers, Hallie travels to the place where her mother lived, a remote island in the middle of the Great Lakes. The stiff islanders fix her first with icy stares and then unabashed amazement as they recognize why she looks so familiar, and Hallie quickly realizes her family’s dark secrets are enmeshed in the history of this strange place. But not everyone greets her with such a chilly reception—a coffee-shop owner and the family’s lawyer both warm to Hallie, and the possibility of romance blooms. And then there’s the grand Victorian house bequeathed to her—maybe it’s the eerie atmosphere or maybe it’s the prim, elderly maid who used to work for her mother, but Hallie just can’t shake the feeling that strange things are starting to happen . . .

In The Tale of Halcyon Crane, Wendy Webb has created a haunting story full of delicious thrills, vibrant characters, and family secrets.

Library Journal

Hallie James, a divorced thirtysomething working as a copy editor for the local newspaper and dealing with her father's descent into Alzheimer's, receives a letter from a woman named Madlyn Crane who claims to be her mother. Hallie had been told her mother died in a fire when she was six, so she travels to a remote island in the Great Lakes to learn more. She meets with her mother's lawyer, who happens to be one of her childhood friends, and is told that her father had faked both his and Hallie's deaths to escape justice and then raised her under an assumed name. Unable to accept this account, Hallie sets out to clear her father's name. Even as she struggles with the islanders, who might not want past events revisited, Hallie is tormented by ghosts as she learns her family history and tries to piece together the truth. VERDICT Despite a few clichés, Webb offers an engaging modern gothic tale with a strong female protagonist and well-done suspense. Fans of Mary Higgins Clark and Barbara Michaels and readers who like supernatural elements in their fiction will enjoy this debut.—Beth Blakesley, Washington State Univ. Lib., Pullman