From Publishers Weekly
If, round about page 40, you want to tell Miriam Kaminsky to stuff it up her aura, you're in good company. Her pharmacist husband, Rory, has had it with her well-meant new-age meddling in his business. As for their daughter, Cara, she figures no teen ever had a more embarrassing mom than this phone psychic with her flowing clothes and herbal remedies. Miriam could help support her family if she expanded her psychic business, but Cara certainly doesn't want her to. Yet first-time novelist Shapiro has a gift of her own; even the skeptical reader can't help believing that Miriam is wired differently from the rest of us. She sees her dead grandmother and her husband's deceased parents, hears sounds beyond the normal range of hearing and perceives the love her daughter feels for bad boy Lance Stark as a "pink haze." Poor, sweet Miriam! Why isn't life easier? Things will work out, of course, but only after Miriam must use her gifts to save Cara from freezing in the woods after she runs off with Lance. When Cara discovers her dead grandmother's sewing machine, it seems that she, too, has a gift: all she has to do is look at a piece of fabric to know what it should become. In addition to delivering touching wisdom about mothers and daughters, Shapiro also offers a sharp portrait of fastidious, appearance-obsessed Great Neck, N.Y.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
The mother of teenage Cara, wife of hardworking pharmacist Rory, Miriam Calhoun seems utterly ordinary. Actually, she's anything but. Not only can she foresee the future (she works from home as a telephone psychic), she also sees ghosts! Unlike her embarrassed daughter, her husband accepts her gifts, but he has always drawn the line when it comes to interfering in family business, causing Miriam to doubt herself. Now, however, money is tight, and Cara, in full teen meltdown, has run away with a sexy "bad boy." It's time for Miriam to be a little more proactive. Comic relief comes in the shape of Miriam's scandalized neighbors and batty phone customers as well as her own self-deprecating voice, but emotions ring surprisingly serious and true. And even the ghosts seem acceptable within the careful construct of Miriam's daily life. After all, as Miriam muses early on, "the Old Testament was full of visionaries and dreamers like Joseph and Isaiah," so what's the big deal?
Stephanie ZvirinCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
