Product Description

Her first novel, Jimmy's Girl, was "an assured debut" (Publishers Weekly) and "a perfect reminder of how strong first love can be" (Redbook). With The Puzzle Bark Tree, Stephanie Gertler returns with a new novel showing her mastery at conveying the passion and power of the human heart.

Grace Hammond Barnett grew up in the emotionally desolate company of her mother and father. Her only happy childhood memories are of times spent with her younger sister, Melanie, and Jemma, the family housekeeper who helped fill the void left by Grace's detached, inaccessible parents. Now a mother herself, Grace feels trapped in a sterile marriage to a prominent surgeon and haunted by recurrent dreams of drowning. Her only anchor is her cherished daughter, Kate.

In the aftermath of her parents' sudden double suicides -- a tragedy that leaves Grace, Melanie, and Jemma reeling -- Grace is bequeathed a house she never knew existed. Leaving her penthouse in Manhattan on New Year's Eve, she travels alone to Sabbath Landing, New York, to a log cabin house on Canterbury Island, surrounded by Diamond Lake. Here, Grace meets Luke Keegan, a local fishing guide whose family history is inextricably bound to hers . . . and to a devastating secret buried in the cloudy memory of childhood.

With compassion and elegance, Stephanie Gertler crafts an emotionally rich story of what it means to survive and thrive against all odds. Like its intricate, interlocking pieces that branch out to shape lives, The Puzzle Bark Tree plumbs the mysteries of the people we can never truly know . . . of the incomplete memories we carry with us, and the love that can make us whole.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1152700 in Books
• Published on: 2003-05-23
• Released on: 2003-06-03
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 384 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Gertler's follow-up to her well-received first novel, Jimmy's Girl, treads a too familiar trail: a middle-aged woman whose marriage has gone flat finds love with a childhood friend. Where Jimmy's Girl succeeded in summoning the hot passions of first love, this time neither the mystery of a childhood tragedy nor the love story catch fire. Grace Hammond Barnett, 44, is stunned to receive an early morning phone call from her sister, Melanie, informing her that their parents have committed suicide. Grace's doctor husband, Adam, is unsympathetic and too busy to accompany her to her parents' home in upstate New York. Grace and Melanie comfort each other, and admit to themselves that they were really raised by the family housekeeper; their parents barely noticed them or tolerated their existence. At the reading of the will, a mystery unfolds: Grace has been left a house in Sabbath Landing, N.Y., a lakeside cabin no one knew existed. As tensions between Grace and Adam mount, they separate and Grace goes to check out the cabin. There she finds handsome Luke Keegan, who reveals a Hammond family secret to Grace. Gertler tries too hard to build suspense in Grace's search for the truth behind her parents' emotionally inaccessible behavior. Luke is so sensitive and romantic, Adam so insensitive and self-absorbed, that neither man appears real. Mature women with an itch to find young passion again are not likely to be satisfied by this strained effort.
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Grace grew up with parents emotionally removed from the world. Despite their stoicism and lack of interest, Grace became a free spirit, a dance teacher for the physically challenged, a wife and a devoted mother. After her parents die in a double suicide, Grace learns they did not bequeath anything to her but a house she never knew existed, in a place she never heard of. Curious, Grace travels to the small rural town of Sabbath Landing, New York. She finds herself eerily drawn to the place even though the water intensifies her recurring nightmare of drowning. She also discovers a side to her parents she never saw growing up and exposes a deeply held family secret. One of the locals, Luke Keegan, knew Grace's family and takes it upon himself to help Grace learn the truth about her parents, the house, and her own part in the tragic events that turned her parents into emotional recluses. Gertler's novel is tentative and sometimes forced, and many of the characters are one dimensional; but it makes a good popular read. Carolyn Kubisz
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About the Author
Stephanie Gertler is the author of the acclaimed novel Jimmy's Girl. She writes a monthly lifestyles column called "These Days" for two Connecticut newspapers, The Advocate and Greenwich Time. She lives in New York with her husband, three children, and four dogs.