Joinings is a book which uniquely fuses a deeply female generational story with a tingling tale of the supernatural, and stirs the heart while tickling the mind.Set in the Colorado town of Leadville, the book depicts the lives of an interlocking series of women, several of whom belong to the Sodalicium, an ancient sisterhood whose individual members are endowed with "bequests" or special sixth senses that enable them to tap into apparently divine powers.
The book dwells principally on Lucy, a plucky castaway of sorts, orphaned early in life, who eventually washes up in the home of the only family she has a grandmother and a great aunt, thrown together late in life, and living in affectionate squabbling happiness in a small town in Colorado. Lucy's hardluck life has included her mother dying young, and her being raped and giving birth to a fatherless child, but she prevails on these kind-hearted biddies to take her and her daughter in, which they gladly do. She's always been aware of her own strangeness - a gift for divining the emotional state of people through their writing or painting - and of how this gift has alienated her from people her whole life long. But in her grandmother's house she not only finds the maternal sympathy she craves, she finds as well a woman experienced in the extra-worldly mysteries of the bequest and willing to teach her. Grace will take her under her wing, instruct her in her gift, encourage her to overcome her trauma and fall in love, and allow her to understand the ancient order to which she belongs, in a highly ritualized process called her "discernment." But Lucy and this household of strong, highly individual women will also discover more then theybargain for along the way.It is their adventures, fluently mixing the erotic and the tender-hearted, the supernatural and the down-home, which form the core of the book.
Filled with beautiful evocations of the seasons, and creative explorations into the unseen world, Joinings is certain to appeal to readers interested in an exploration of romance, and of the operations of magic in daily life. But it is also a book for those interested in knowing more about those places where families chafe, uphold and embrace one another.