The Diviner's Tale: Book summary and reviews of The Diviner's Tale by Bradford Morrow

The Diviner's Tale Summary

Walking a lonely forested valley on a spring morning in upstate New York, having been hired by a developer to dowse the land, Cassandra Brooks comes upon the shocking vision of a young girl hanged from a tree. When she returns with authorities to the site, the body has vanished, leaving in question Cassandra's credibility if not her sanity. The next day, on a return visit with the sheriff to have another look, a dazed, mute missing girl emerges from the woods, alive and the very picture of Cassandra's hanged girl.

What follows is the narrative of ever-deepening and increasingly bizarre divinations that will lead this gifted young woman, the struggling single mother of twin boys, hurtling toward a past she'd long since thought was behind her. The Diviner's Tale is at once a journey of self-discovery and an unorthodox murder mystery, a tale of the fantastic and a family chronicle told by an otherwise ordinary woman.

When Cassandra’s dark forebodings take on tangible form, she is forced to confront a life spiraling out of control. And soon she is locked in a mortal chess match with a real-life killer who has haunted her since before she can remember.

The Diviner's Tale Reviews

"[A] solid gothic-infused tale of family secrets...Morrow beautifully evokes Cassandra's inner turmoil..." - Publishers Weekly

"A committed dowser but reluctant psychic is the winsome protagonist of this sixth novel from Morrow, which occupies a middle ground between domestic realism and Gothic suspense...Morrow does a fine job portraying a family whose love transcends sharply conflicting worldviews..." - Kirkus Reviews

"This meditation on childhood trauma is a hybrid: half suspense, half 'literary' fiction. Unfortunately, the mystery is often predictable, but the prose (despite some trying descriptions of foliage and birds) supersedes the plot." - Library Journal

"Bradford Morrow, like the diviner-heroine of The Diviner's Tale, is a mesmerizing storyteller who casts an irresistible spell. He has constructed an ingeniously plotted mystery that is at the same time a love story - luminous and magical, fraught with suspense, beautifully and subtly rendered - a feat of prose divination." - Joyce Carol Oates

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Bradford Morrow Author Biography

Born in Baltimore, Maryland, Bradford Morrow grew up in Denver, Colorado, and has lived or worked in a variety of places. As a teenager, he traveled through rural Honduras as a member of the Amigos de las Americas program, serving as a medical volunteer in the summer of 1967. The following year he was awarded an American Field Service scholarship to finish his last year of high school as a foreign exchange student at a Liceo Scientifico in Cuneo, Italy. In 1973, he took time off from studying at the University of Colorado to live in Paris for a year. After doing graduate work at Yale University, he moved to Santa Barbara, California where he worked as a bookseller until relocating to New York City in 1981, where he founded the literary journal Conjunctions and began writing novels....

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