Providence Point - Highcroft R. C.

SOMETHING remarkable occurs when Rob Kingsmere unpacks his memories of Providence Point, a long-lost cottage on Georgian Bay. 1950s and '60s recollections flow into a sunny narrative of vacations spent in that paradise. Yet shadows gradually cloud the horizon.

Boyish camaraderie jostles with simmering family discord, cherished serenity with the threat of turmoil, and time-honoured Bayside ways with the city's siren call. At length Rob and his two closest northcountry companions must each confront the same challenge: how to maintain their most precious aspirations? For Rex that imperative may require a hazardous fresh start in Toronto, for Hank a renewed commitment to Georgian Bay. And for Rob perhaps some fusion of the two, if only it can be finessed.

As readers turn the novel's final page, they will be swept by nostalgia for such memorable figures as Granny basking in the glory of her fabled run-in with a rattler (or was it a bear?), Violette presiding over her garden replete with produce and knee-high helpers, Dudley contemplating his beloved pie-shaped boat, or any number of matchless others. And like Rob, all will treasure having resided at least fleetingly in an almost if not quite perfectly untarnished realm.