I was reading this book thinking yes, a so far well done version of coming of age story, (sub genre, young woman receives inheritance and sets off to find the mystery of her past and birth parents); when suddenly the woman turns out to be in her early fifties as she sets off to see her inherited house and look for her past.
One of the themes of this book is that other coming of age, when parents die and we stand on the threshold of old age ourselves. Or late middle age, as Old Age seems to have shifted to being older than 70 now. The other theme is change and thresholds, when we choose to change or stay the same, and whether we accept parental views of us or not. The author is American, so naturally change equals growth equals a good thing. Which it is in this book, though not always in real life.
I enjoyed this book, though around the middle I was thinking not much has happened yet. However, most of what we learned turned out to be necessary, though maybe not the detailing of what most meals were - though you could make the case the author is using food to show how Mira has moved to a different culture in the shift from Ohio to New Mexico. I also enjoyed the deftness with which the author set a fantasy in the modern world, email and magical happenings rarely seem so right together on the same page.
The climax of the book was particularly strong. This is the first Lindskold I have read, but I will look for more.
Child of a Rainless Year was first published in 2005
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