COASTAL MAINE BOTANICAL GARDENS ET AL
Fun with Our Granddaughters
Our granddaughters and their parents were with us this past week. No visit would be complete without continuing tradition with some annual outings. Everything from mini golf to the botanical gardens to purchases at Sherman’s Books to one more visit to Railway Village.
Of course, we rode the steam train around the loop, but this year, feeding Coal and Tender, the two resident goats, and trying to climb the hanging rope were as much fun as checking out the antique cars and the extensive model train layout.
As for the gardens, the dahlias were lushly in bloom. Butterflies were about, the girls checked up on the bees, and then they made two other stops that are part of this annual ritual.
One is rowing the beached boat, and the other is posing on the bear statue associated with Blueberries for Sal. This might be the last year they will both fit on it!
MAINE NOVEL: HAUNTED HOUSE, HISTORY & ADDICTION
The Cliffs by J. Courtney Sullivan
The Cliffs is a multi-layered novel about Jane Flanagan, an archivist who returns to the Maine coast and becomes caught up in the mysteries and history of a house that first attracted her as a teenager. She has lost her job, is taking a break from her marriage, and hopes to sort herself out. Instead, she delves into the complex stories of residents of the house from long ago, participates in a spiritualism retreat, and studies the history of the Wabanaki, some of Maine’s earliest tribal residents.
It’s a novel that has so much in it, I wondered along the way if it might have been better as two books. One as a novel about Jane, her quest and her alcoholism, and the other, nonfiction about Maine’s early history and what role spiritualism and mediums might have played. Some of the historical info is tutorial in nature. But, there’s a richness here, and despite the novel’s multiple strands, I enjoyed it. Cautiously recommended! (~JWFarrington)
J. Courtney Sullivan is the author of many other novels including another one set in Maine, published in 2011, and plainly titled Maine.
