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From Publishers Weekly
Reynold's first novel is an original, lyrically written tale about an incest survivor's recovery. By age 21, Jael has experienced the loss of her guardian, whom she accidentally killed 10 years earlier; sexual abuse by the man who subsequently adopted her; and abandonment by another in the swampy, Southern backwoods setting. Educated by her guardian and on her own, Jael is utterly unprepared for the wider world she finally enters. A social worker, a survivor's group and the inhabitants of a local church community ease her move into society and her gradual understanding of what has happened to her. Reynolds makes minimal use of the psychological jargon of victimization; Jael, quirky and dead sure of her instincts, is a beautifully realized character. The novel's suggestion of an almost mythic female spiritual power, and the abundance of religious imagery, including the presence in the village of the Madonna, is occasionally tiresome, and the male characters are not as fleshed-out as the female ones. Still, Reynolds aims high and just about hits the bull's-eye, displaying a self-assurance and a taste for moral and social issues that make her debut a most welcome one. Literary Guild alternate. (Jan.) MysteryCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Sexual abuse has become such a familiar staple of mysteries and other fiction that its central place in this slender first novel is no surprise. What is surprising is how it becomes a spiritual catalyst for Jael, a victim whose search for peace leads her beyond the comfort of professional therapy. Opening and closing her story with the antiphonal "Gods change colors and spin themselves new garments every day," Jael communes with spirit voices, meets real people, and risks friendships to find new ways to worship what is familiar and divine. Reynolds transforms an abased and self-mutilating girl into a mystical avatar able to radiate her godly attributes. This transformation is achieved without romanticizing the gritty realness of her life. She is poor and rough, and her harsh life is accurately portrayed. Yet, in her thoughts and actions, Jael is given a lyrical and convincing expressiveness. For fiction collections needing fresh visions of contemporary themes.Barbara Conaty, Library of CongressCopyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
Reynolds charts a "white trash" teenager's harrowing adventures in a wonderfully compelling, powerful, moving, and complex coming-of-age story. Jael helps her mother run a sleazy bar and pool room, all the while fearing the drunken sexual advances of customers who sometimes pass out on the front porch, only to resume drinking in the morning. Her nurturance by the goddess-Mother Earth-Madonna spirit informs the whole novel. She finds this nurturance when she takes comfort from the nearby woods; she finds it in the giant, uprooted oak that provides her shelter when she is seduced and abandoned on an uninhabited swamp island; and she finds it in comforting words from the Virgin Mother's statue in the church in which she discovers work and the power to find peace. Counterpointing Jael's self-redemption, however, is her self-mutilation when in confusion she ritualistically cuts her name into her thigh, gashes her own belly, and gnaws away the skin of her knuckles because it reminds her of penis skin. Whitney Scott

From Kirkus Reviews
Rape, murder, abuse, incest, self-mutilation, and temporary insanity combine to form an uninspiring first novel. Growing up in an unspecified region of rural America, Jael hates her Mammie, who allows the men who buy her moonshine to force themselves on the girl with only the warning ``Don't take no more than you pay for.'' Jael eventually knocks Mammie over the head with a mallet, and the murder is blamed on a disgruntled customer. She is adopted by the deacon, River Bill, and lives contentedly in his house in the middle of the river until the day she predictably becomes ``his wife instead of his daughter...it confused me like nothing before.'' She takes off with a handsome young man who stops at their shop while River Bill isn't around, only to find when she awakens that he's disappeared with all her belongings--a development that surprises her far more than it will the reader. Jael spears frogs for dinner, makes a home under a giant oak, and begins a strange ritual: cutting herself on the stomach, hips, and insides of her thighs. The tone here is so matter-of-fact, and Jael's voice is so colorless, that even this extreme experience seems dull, lifeless, and predictable. After her rescue, Jael fakes amnesia so she won't have to go back to her former life and begin the difficult process of resocializing; instead, she finds support and strength in imaginary companions like the woman she models out of wax and the Virgin Mary. Reynolds's lackluster prose never leaves any doubt that Jael will overcome this passing madness, leaving little reason to watch her working as a janitor in a church, falling in love with a young artist, and joining a sexual- abuse survivors' group. The subject of abuse and recovery deserves more skilled treatment than it gets here. (Literary Guild alternate selection) -- Copyright ©1994, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

ANNOTATION

By the age of 21, Jael has survived the death of her mother, abuse by her father, and abandonment by another man. But the kindness of strangers will rescue her when a social worker, a gentle priest, and a careful man love her back into the world. Voices both real and imagined make Jael stronger every day, until she finds she no longer needs them.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

Bitterroot Landing introduces Jael, born into a hard life, but a survivor. She will survive even River Bill. The almost impersonal kindness of strangers will rescue her; a priest with a good heart will shelter and teach her; a careful man will take his time and love her back into the world. Voices have always spoken to Jael in her mind, and some of what they have told her to do has been frightening. But the voices she hears now speak of comfort and courage, teaching her to master the ways other people manage to live. Jael has a job now, cleaning in a church, and a room of her own in the church's basement. As she dusts the statue of the Virgin Mary, the Virgin speaks peace to her. "There's definitely too much hurt around here," she says. "In flaws, you find the truth," says the small, dark figure of a woman Jael sculpts out of wax. "Come and look at the moon," says the homeless woman she meets at the laundromat. "Hello, I'm an incest survivor," say the women in the recovery group that meets every week in the church, just the other side of Jael's room. Voices both real and imagined make Jael stronger every day, until she finds she no longer needs them. Until she finds that at last she has a voice of her own.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Reynold's first novel is an original, lyrically written tale about an incest survivor's recovery. By age 21, Jael has experienced the loss of her guardian, whom she accidentally killed 10 years earlier; sexual abuse by the man who subsequently adopted her; and abandonment by another in the swampy, Southern backwoods setting. Educated by her guardian and on her own, Jael is utterly unprepared for the wider world she finally enters. A social worker, a survivor's group and the inhabitants of a local church community ease her move into society and her gradual understanding of what has happened to her. Reynolds makes minimal use of the psychological jargon of victimization; Jael, quirky and dead sure of her instincts, is a beautifully realized character. The novel's suggestion of an almost mythic female spiritual power, and the abundance of religious imagery, including the presence in the village of the Madonna, is occasionally tiresome, and the male characters are not as fleshed-out as the female ones. Still, Reynolds aims high and just about hits the bull's-eye, displaying a self-assurance and a taste for moral and social issues that make her debut a most welcome one. Literary Guild alternate. (Jan.) Mystery

Library Journal