Frances was sick and tired… not just sick with the cold that had lingered for the past many weeks, but really feeling as if life had caught up with her. With her career suddenly seeming to be turning south and her love life at a mortifying halt, a 10-day “cleanse” at the Tranquillum House seems to be just what she needs to repair. When she meets Masha, the stunning and passionate guru whose mission is to guide each of the nine newcomers to Tranquillum House through their individual transformations, Frances is a bit wary – but she’s trying her best to be open-minded. Little does she – or any of them – know how they will, in spite of themselves, be completely transformed ultimately, but not at all in the way that they think.
Some books are plot-driven and some are character-driven. This book is both. There are endearing and tragic characters whose layers are gradually peeled off one by one as the story is told via rotating narrative perspectives. Each has their vulnerability that is seen as something that might be remedied by a diet change, or with some counseling or some meditation. (Who can’t relate to that?) But there is also a wild plot that is imaginative and suspenseful and runs beyond where at least I expected it to go. And by the time it is completed, you feel that the nine are no longer strangers, but rather your dear friends.
Better read it before the movie comes out – it’s bound to be a movie!
kindread spirits 