The Girl With The Phony Name
“Lucy MacAlpin Trelaine, about to turn 30, raised in orphanages and foster homes, has had and lost many jobs since flunking out of Harvard, but those failures take second place to her stubborn, unsuccessful attempt to find her roots. That search is suddenly reinvigorated by the legacy of a Celtic brooch, found on a shawl wrapped around the infant Lucy in the aftermath of a car crash outside Boston and stolen by a hospital worker. The trail now leads to New York, where Lucy’s new job is with Tak Wing, the elderly, endearing owner of a string of fast-service funeral parlors. When events point Lucy toward Scotland, it’s Wing who insists she fly to the tiny island of Lis, where the trail ends in a many-layered series of discoveries, a narrow escape from d
eath, and a final pilgrimage to new beginnings back in the New World. Crammed with incident, narrated in lively conversational style: a first novel that blends elements of gothic romance with vivid characters and the contemporary scene into a dazzling story — bizarre, believable and riveting to the end.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
From mundane Weehawken, New Jersey, Lucy follows a circuitous path to the wild and woolly Hebrides, confronting assorted meanies on both sides of the pond….
Endearing and irrepressible.
— Philadelphia Inquirer
A charmer …all ends well and one hopes we have not seen the last of Tak Wing and Lucy.
— Washington Times
The ultimate cosy, charming and fun and full of endearing characters and odd circumstances, rather reminiscent of Barbara Michaels at her best.
— The Purloined Letter