cover image Life Erupted

Life Erupted

Mary Stanik, illus. by Jack Ohman. Mary Stanik, $11.99 paper (222p) ISBN 978-0-9883900-0-3

At age 36, Jenn Bergquist finds life as media relations director of a Minneapolis hospital tolerable if romantically unrewarding. She travels to Iceland when famous psychic Bianca Fiona, awaiting a liver transplant, asks her to work with Bianca's volcanologist brother, Tony. While this fortuitous intervention allows Jenn to escape the hospital, the trip leads to the revelation of decades-old secrets that threaten to change Jenn's life. Although romance prevails and good fortune implausibly intervenes, Jenn never becomes more than a cipher. Stanik evidently draws on her own life experience in creating the well-developed Jenn. However, the implausible action, even less plausible wrapping up, and mixed bag of unusual characters may leave readers indifferent.