Edge of Eden

In 1960, the Colonial Office informs lowest tier British diplomat Rupert that he is being assigned to the French Creole speaking Seychelle Islands in the Indian Ocean. His wife Penelope is outraged with the assignment's location and Rupert's blithely ordering her that she and their two daughters accompany him. On the sea voyage to the isolated Crown Colony, Penelope becomes sea sick while Rupert flirts with another female so ignores his two children as the eight year old Zara bullies her three years old sibling. Upon reaching their destination, Penelope feels like an outsider even with her family, but not with the Colonial Governor. Her children take to the island "paradise" as if they lived there all their lives. Rupert focuses more on his native secretary Joelle instead of the economics report he is to develop or his family. When the marriage collapses, Zara turns to the local witch doctors for a love spell to reunite her family while now pregnant Joelle turns to the same grigri magical practitioners to send Penelope back to England without her Rupert. Desperate to save her marriage and family, Penelope also pleads with the black magical users for help. This is an intriguing historical thriller that readers will enjoy though wonder what the three females see in Rupert, which is one of their two constants (the other being each turns to grigri), as the women's inspirational muses seem to change with each calamity. The story line is fast-paced while also hyperbolizing satire to make a point about clashing civilizations. THE EDGE OF EDEN is an engaging psychological suspense tale as the audience wonders who will be the last female standing on the Seychelles and will Rupert be at her side. Harriet Klausner

THE LIBRARY JOURNAL REVIEWER WRITES: In the 1960s, a government transfer brings the Weston family from Britain to the Seychelles, beautiful islands in the western Indian Ocean whose inhabitants speak French Creole and whose culture leans intensely on a belief in black magic. Unfortunately for Rupert and Penelope, what had been a happy marriage begins to falter in this exotic environment, even as daughters Zara and Chloe begin to flourish. In particular, eight-year-old Zara is enamored of the local witchcraft, with its reliance on spells and curses. When bright and spunky Penelope begins to realize that Rupert is seeing another woman, she sinks further into despair. Disliking her local British compatriots, she confides in Marguerite, her wise, shrewd Seychellois housekeeper, who also acts as the children's nana, and befriends an interesting American couple there to do research. Verdict Benedict, an author of both fiction and nonfiction (Sailor's Wife; Virgin or Vamp), offers distinctive cross-cultural insights as well as a cadre of satiric and fascinating characters, and the result is a story that is both touching and humorous. Highly recommended.--Maureen Neville, Trenton P.L., NJ

As their ship draws near the Seychelles Islands in 1960, husband and wife Rupert and Penelope Weston have different expectations, their family in trouble long before setting foot on an island paradise once a hub of the slave trade, now the awkward stepchild of British colonialism. Rupert is a bureaucrat looking forward to his new posting; Penelope is resentful, unwilling to transplant their daughters, Zara, eight, and Chloe, three, homesick for London even as the lush vegetation of the islands beckon. Germinating on the long voyage, this conflict blooms once the Weston's arrive in their new home. The children run wild, unkempt and unwashed, Rupert consumed by work, Penelope sinking into apathy, barely able to leave her room, moody and desperate. The dark-skinned, impish Zara sees everything as an adventure, shadowing the servants, learning about island superstitions and grigri, concocting her own spells. Benedict tracks the fault line through this family with stunning clarity in the children's behavior, Zara's fascination with spells and her penchant for torturing Chloe, the sweet child with dimples and blonde curls who has already fallen through the cracks of her parent's attention. Zara is increasingly worried about the "devil worm" that has taken over Penelope's personality, so worried about her mother that she fails to notice that her father comes home less and less frequently. This is a place where spells make powerful magic, where lovers can be bound to one another and straying husbands returned, Rupert's secretary, Joelle, already actively seducing him away from Penelope, determined to replace his worthless wife. And why not? Joelle deserves the luxuries Penelope enjoys. The landscape is ominous, lush with beauty and tragic history, filled with superstition and the natives' distrust of the English, deeply religious yet unshakably devoted to arcane superstitions for protection from evil. The Weston's have no chance, each adult absorbed in his own needs, Zara frantically gathering information for powerful spells to control her environment. It is not surprising, then, when an innocent becomes the victim of the jealousy of women, when potent medicine falls into the wrong hands and the foolishness of adults comes crashing down in tragedy. Benedict describes it all, from the brewing antagonism between husband and wife to the jealousy of Rupert's lover to the carelessness of a nanny who has a new man on her mind and no eyes for the children in her care. On the islands, rules are lax, passion triumphs over logic and innocents are lost along the way. Paradise is bountiful and fecund, noisy with the demands of its inhabitants. Moments slide by, opportunities missed, loved ones lost as paradise claims its price. Luan Gaines/ 2009.