The Mystery Of Grace

By Charles de Lint is one of his newest books.  It is about Grace, a rockabilly car mechanic who fixes up vintage cars for a living (and for fun).  It is your typical girl meets boy, girl falls for boy, girl can’t have boy story.

Except that Grace is dead.

She is dead and trapped in this sort of non-after-life where she is allowed to come back to the land of the living twice a year.  On one of these visits she meets John and they fall head over hills.

What follows is a story about love, loss, and faith.  It is very well done and does not end in the way you would expect.  It does end the way it needs to to keep the integrity of the story, however, which is one of the reasons I really am quite fond of Charles de Lint.  He is willing to give you a happy, bittersweet, or even sad ending to a book to keep the integrity of the story, a sensibility that, sadly, many writers today lack.

That said, this is not one of his feel good books.  You are not left with a sense of happiness.  You are, however, left with a sense of rightness and hope, and really, what more could you ask?

I really enjoyed this book, and can’t wait to start the next one.  (I know I promised a book that wasn’t Charles de Lint, and I am reading two, actually.  They are just very tedious and I needed a break.)

~ by mexalapotis on May 7, 2009.