Between Heaven and Here

Susan Straight has explored the fictional landscape of Rio Seco, Calif., for more than two decades, and while each of her novels can stand on its own, many characters make recurring appearances. Between Heaven and Here continues the stories of the Sarrat families from A Million Nightingales (2007) and Take One Candle Light a Room (2010); the events in this third novel precede those in Take One Candle... by five years. These novels constitute a trilogy by virtue of people and place, rather than plot.

Tied together by blood, marriages and the enclave they'd established across the canal from the city and named for their Louisiana hometown, the Antoines and Picards are both well-known and set apart in Rio Seco, none more so than Glorette, the most beautiful of the Sarrat girls. Sadly, that beauty has never gotten her much more than a teenage son and a crack addiction; now, on the eve of her 35th birthday, it may have gotten her murdered. This is a family matter: after all, will anyone else care about the death of a streetwalker whose body was found in a shopping cart in a back alley?

Between Heaven and Here recounts the days surrounding Glorette's death, the search for her killer and family history from the perspectives of many members of her family. Straight knows her landscape well and renders it vividly. She has created an affecting world in Rio Seco and, even as she brings this story to a close, one hopes she has many more to tell. --Florinda Pendley Vasquez, blogger at The 3 R's Blog: Reading, 'Riting, and Randomness

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