cover image Where the Heart Lives

Where the Heart Lives

Mara Purl. Midpoint Trade, $24.95 (384p) ISBN 978-1-936878-02-4

Purl’s tepid sequel to What the Heart Knows is a series of soap operaesque caricature sketches masquerading as a story. Loosely centered around artist Miranda Jones, who is slowly finding success with wildlife paintings, the novel soon meanders into the loosely connected navel-gazing lives of the inhabitants of the fictional California town of Milford-Haven, including town official Samantha Hugo’s search for the child she gave up for adoption and sheriff’s deputy Delmar Johnson’s investigation of a television journalist’s disappearance. Purl depicts a mid-1990s, largely white culture—hard for anyone familiar with present-day California to picture—where inner soul-searching often comes out in preachiness. Readers searching for more story and fewer episodic character slices with unresolved plots would do better elsewhere. (Nov.)