The Twisting Road Tea Room. Deb Loughead. Charlottetown, PE: Ragweed Press, 2000. 172 pp., pbk., $8.95. ISBN 0-921556-79-9. Grades 4-8 / Ages 9-13. Review by Liz Greenaway. ***1/2 /4

excerpt:

My father was a teller. By that I mean a storyteller. When I was a little girl, he would cuddle me close and tell me endless stories. He came from Nova Scotia, a place where telling is still alive and well, still a thriving pastime around kitchen tables and firesides. The roots of his stories, just like his own roots, were there. His stories were folk tales and ghostly yarns and true stories about heroic rescues and sailing ships and unexplainable miracles. He had a way of telling them in a low, slow voice that would captivate me from the first work to the last, and leave me begging for me.

I loved those stories so much that from the time I was in Grade Three I would write them down in a notebook that I'd smuggled home from school. I never wanted to forget them. I wanted to tell them to my own kids some day so I wrote them all down. Every single one. And I felt like I had preserved something. I knew that once they were on paper they were safe. For some strange reason I was afraid of losing them. Or maybe I was afraid of losing the teller. Maybe even then I had an inkling.

First time novelist Deb Loughead has written a terrific coming-of-age/mystery in her novel, The Twisting Road Tea Room. Emma Malone is a grade eight student struggling both with her father's death two years ago, as well as with her and her mother's hand to mouth existence in Toronto. When they learn that they have inherited Emma's grandmother's house in Lunenburg, NS, Emma's mother, Maggie, wants to jump at the chance to start over without bills hanging over their heads. Emma is more reluctant and even more bitter when they arrive in Lunenburg to see her mother settling in so quickly.

      A bizarre codicil to the will requires them to share the house with Rosalyn Duff, a woman who looked after the grandmother before her death. There's something about her Emma doesn't trust, and it's not just her constantly making herbal concoctions. Rosalyn seems to be able to read Emma's thoughts, which is disconcerting to say the least. And there is definitely more to Rosalyn's connection to the house than she is saying.

     While Rosalyn and Maggie begin a plan to open a tea room, the mysterious events continue for Emma when she finds a gold ring with her own initials in it that seems to be connected to the ghostly presence in the house. The mystery continues as she starts to believe she's seeing her own father on the streets of Lunenburg.

     Emma Malone is a well-developed and very likable protagonist. I found both the mystery and Emma's own attempt to come to terms with her father's death to be perfectly pitched. The Twisting Road Tea Room is reminiscent of Margaret Buffie's novels in its ability to combine the supernatural with a realistic novel with emotional depth. I hope to see more novels by this author in the future.

Highly Recommended.

Liz Greenaway has worked in bookselling and publishing and now resides in Edmonton, AB, with two young children.

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