Heart of Glass

April 15, 2012
Kate Keene was adopted by a wealthy Southern couple when she was seven years old. They gave her everything money could buy but denied her the sense of being part of a family. Until the Civil War broke out, Kate felt closer to the neighboring Delanys, who owned the beautiful plantation Belle Fleuve. Amelie was her best friend, and Kate had a huge crush on Colin, the family scion. Seventeen years later, Kate, now an architect, returns to Louisiana, hoping to reestablish her friendship with the Delanys, but the parents are dead; Colin is a disabled, drug-addled veteran; and Amelie has not been heard from since she took off with a deserter during the war. Trying to make Belle Fleuve habitable again, Kate, who secretly paid off the back taxes to keep it out of foreclosure, temporarily moves in, and soon Amelie returns home, fatally ill, with her two children. The third stand-alone in Landis' Irish Angel series is a satisfying tale of many kinds of love created anew and renewed for those reunited after decades.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2012, American Library Association.)