Fallams Secret [Hardcover]

Appalachia has a mysticism that appeals to many people. Fallam's Secret tells a story that contains the mysticism, the grit, and the integrity of an isolated group of people.

When Carlo Falcone comes to West Virginia in 1918, he is poverty-stricken. After WWII he returns to West Virginia, purchases a plot of land on Fallam Mountain, where he builds his family home in the style of his beloved Italian countryside. One Christmas Eve, a tragic fire destroys their home, killing Carlo's wife and five of their children; only Carlo and the baby, Lydde, survive. The mother's body is found in the ashes, but the other bodies are never discovered and there is no reasonable answer to the absence of the children's bones. Consequently, Carlo spends the rest of his life searching for his children, leaving Lydde to be raised by her aunt and uncle.

Lydde grows, attends school and graduates from college, where she develops a lifelong love of Shakespearean Theater. Lydde is an actor, living in London, until she reaches a certain age, at which time she takes a position as a teacher. Her Uncle John begs Lydde to return home, hinting of an important discovery there, but unwilling to divulge the details prematurely. Unfortunately, she doesn't come home until her uncle's funeral.

Lydde searches through John's personal papers until she finds a key and specific directions for passing through an opening in a cave John stumbled across years earlier. Following the very specific directions, Lydde falls through time like Alice down the rabbit hole, turning up in a village in 1657 England, where she meets her Uncle John, alive. Surprisingly, both are younger, Lydde in her early twenties. John explains about "wormholes" in space and "thin places" where one dimension may be accessible to another, all explained by quantum physics and imagination. No longer wild theories, such possibilities are seriously considered in the world of physics.

The story is believable through the first half of the book, but once Lydde finds herself in 17th century England, the tale turns into a fairy tale. Lydde's adventures work well enough until morphing into a romance novel when she meets the man of her dreams, a sort of Robinhood redux. Thereafter she enters into a passionate, fated romance, one made possible by the gift of a younger, fresher physical body. Lydde makes a critical decision about traveling through time and the future of her love affair, but the story is, at best, formulaic.

The plot device is not as interesting as I have come to expect from the accomplished Giardina, although historically accurate. The premise is interesting: time travel, wormholes and contiguous worlds. Still, the author offers no conclusions, giving the reader, instead, a simple tale of romance and escapism. Luan Gaines/2004.