When Abel Cohen (Spinney) was six years old, she got lost in
the woods surrounding her parents vacation cabin in Maine. Zac Lipton, a girl
slightly older than Abel, finds her wandering around and helps her find her way
back home. Zac has lived in the woods all her life and knows every inch of them.
The two young girls become firm friends and play together every day over the
summer, enjoying carefree laughter, adventures and spinning. The summer came to
an end and the girls didn’t meet again until fourteen years later.
Abel couldn’t remember Zac, but after a shaky beginning, they
embark on a firm friendship, strengthening their feelings from the past, as Abel
gradually begins to remember the summer spent with Zac.
Abel introduces Zac into her modern day world. A world that
Zac has never been in. Zac teaches Abel all about her world, the big
outdoors.
Both women explore not only their different worlds, but the
growing feelings they have for each other.
When Abel has almost finished with college, she knows her
visits to the cabin are going to be infrequent, if she visits at all. Will this
be the end of their friendship? Or will Abel be able to talk Zac into moving to
Boston to be with her? Zac has never lived in a big city. Will she choose to
stay in her beloved woods? Or will she follow her heart and Abel?
This story grabbed me right from the very first page and held
me captivated right until the very last page. Although this book is a nice
lengthy one, I still hadn’t had enough and wanted to see much more from these
characters, so much so, that a sequel would be very welcome.
Both Abel and Zac are multidimensional and so vastly
different. Abel has grown up having every modern convenience, while Zac has
basically lived in the wild without really knowing much about civilization, let
alone every day modern conveniences and technology. But, do two people have to
be similar or the same to be soul mates? The answer is no. Not if you believe in
true love and the concept of having a soul mate.
This book starts out when Abel and Zac were young, they didn’t
meet again for many years. Where as Abel had forgotten about Zac, Zac had always
remembered Abel, Spinney as she was nicknamed back then. As the story unfolds,
we read about how they meet again and get to know one another all over again. I
don’t want to add in any spoilers, but suffice it to say, that I found the story
fascinating.
This book is very well written and has highs and lows of
emotions and is very sad in parts, although there is a lot of happiness and
laughter throughout too. As the story moves forward, it’s good to see how Zac is
integrated into the Cohen family and comes to accept that they are not out to
harm her and how she goes from being a recluse into actually enjoying the
company of others. We follow her as she learns all about living in the world of
people, rather than the world of her forest with just animals for company. Zac’s
only experience outside of the forest was spent ‘riding the rails’. But she
rarely encountered many people, so didn’t learn to interact with them. We also
see how Abel learns all about Zac’s world too. How two so very different worlds
collide and hopefully, Zac will become as comfortable in both worlds as Abel
is.
This is a book that I’ll be reading again. I’m now looking
forward to more from both Kim Pritekel and Alex Ross.
No comments:
Post a Comment