From Publishers Weekly
During the week before Easter, an 11-year-old girl in a provincial Canadian town begins to bleed from her left hand. The doctor in the small Manitoba community can find no discernible cause, but when blood begins to trickle from her other extremities, the conviction grows that Donna Desjardins is exhibiting the mystical phenomenon of stigmata. Weaving diary entries, interview transcripts, first-person narratives, correspondence and book excerpts into an impressionistic, episodic text, this lyrical first novel focuses on three main characters and their reactions to this phenomenon. Molly Rhutabaga, an elderly local writer, "a woman who sits at a window, watches" is the guide for this journey; she directly addresses the "gentle reader," and her mellifluous voice, full of wisdom and understanding of life, is the spiritual balance to the skepticism of Daniel Halpern, a big-city journalist covering the stigmata story, and Virginie Waters, the physician whose empirical beliefs are tested by this intrusion of the bizarre into quotidian life. Apparently, this is the second incidence of bleeding stigmata in this tiny town; 60 years ago, an immigrant woman from Ukraine exhibited the wounds. Soon there is yet another episode in the community, and finally a murder. An overwhelming sadness hovers over the story, with each character suppressing pain of a lost love. Although the plot is in a sense a mystery that Halpern tries to unravel, Cook is more preoccupied with the notion of the complexity of spiritual belief. "I'm trying to forgive myself for not being able to believe in the impossible," Halpern says after his meticulous lists and transcripts provide no solutions. The reader is left in the same ambiguous state, as Cook doesn't seem to arrive at the conclusions her own challenging questions seek. The South African-Canadian author writes gorgeous prose, but its sinuous self-absorption sometimes weighs down the narrative. Though the language here is to be savored, character development tends to be suffocated under its flowery density. Nevertheless, this is a promising debut by a writer passionately devoted to the beauty of the written word. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Just before Easter, in the quiet town of Annex, Manitoba, an 11-year-old girl begins to bleed spontaneously, first from her palms and then from her feet and abdomen. Sixty years earlier, in the same place and at the same time of year, another Annex woman, this one a Ukrainian immigrant in the end stages of multiple sclerosis, exhibited the very same stigmata. Questions of scientific proof and faith in miracles perplex and preoccupy Daniel Halpern, a Winnipeg reporter investigating the story; Virginie Waters, the local doctor, newly arrived from Montreal to take over her father's former medical practice; and Molly Rutabaga, a lifelong resident and keen observer of the goings-on in Annex. Told through Molly's memoir, Daniel's notes and queries, and Virginie's journal entries in language that is spare and poetic, this strong first novel belongs in most public libraries.ABarbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Kirkus Reviews
Canadian poet Cook debuts with a teasing, lyrical inquest into a modern case of stigmata. Nothing's ever happened in the life of schoolgirl Donna Desjardins to explain why she should suddenly, in the week before Easter, begin bleeding from the palm of her left hand. As the week goes on, the spontaneous bleeding, for which doctors can find no source in any wound, migrates to one foot, then the other, then her side, then the crown of her head, before stopping just as abruptly and mysteriously. An empathetic imitation of the wounds of the suffering Christ? A product of hysterical neurosis? An elaborate fraud? Hard-bitten journalist Daniel Halpern, sent from the Winnipeg Herald to Donna's small town of Annex to investigate after the first frenzy of reporters has ebbed, learns that this isn't the first case of stigmata in Annex history. Over 60 years ago, Alisha Hukic developed similar wounds a year before she died of multiple sclerosisa condition that would have made it impossible for her to inflict such wounds on herself. And as Daniel, himself suffering from a debilitating liver tumor, gathers testimony from the locals, from circumspect Father Massimo Ricci to Donna's protective mother Kennedy, Alisha's niece Regina develops similar symptoms. Cook builds the story of Donna, ``the book we are all trying to read,'' through a kaleidoscopic dossier of evidence that ranges from the ``Gentle Reader'' letters of Regina's companion Molly Rhutabaga to a life of the 14th-century saint Bella-Marie Lambe to the claim of an Indiana housewife to have seen Jesus' face in a spray of detergent on a windowpane. It all leads to a murder, described with insolent casualness, that raises more questions than it answers. An enigmatic palimpsest of a novel reminiscent of D.M. Thomas's The White Hotel. But where Thomas was determined to penetrate to the heart of his mystery, Cook seems equally set on preserving her mystery all inviolate. -- Copyright ©1999, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

The Blood Girls is a gripping novel of literary detection that begins when Donna Desjardins starts to bleed from her palms days before Easter, in the small town of Annex, Manitoba, and climaxes with a strange and brutal murder that calls up unavoidable comparisons with the stigmata.

Virginia Waters, town doctor. Daniel Halpern, skeptical journalist. Molly Rutabaga and her lifelong companion, Regina. Father Ricci, the Catholic priest. All respond to the story of the blood girl, a story brilliantly constructed from journal entries, memory, interviews, newspaper articles, desire, imagination, correspondence, and invective. Recalling Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil as a work of literary intrigue, The Blood Girls is both satisfying and astonishing.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

During the week before Easter, an 11-year-old girl in a provincial Canadian town begins to bleed from her left hand. The doctor in the small Manitoba community can find no discernible cause, but when blood begins to trickle from her other extremities, the conviction grows that Donna Desjardins is exhibiting the mystical phenomenon of stigmata. Weaving diary entries, interview transcripts, first-person narratives, correspondence and book excerpts into an impressionistic, episodic text, this lyrical first novel focuses on three main characters and their reactions to this phenomenon. Molly Rhutabaga, an elderly local writer, "a woman who sits at a window, watches" is the guide for this journey; she directly addresses the "gentle reader,'' and her mellifluous voice, full of wisdom and understanding of life, is the spiritual balance to the skepticism of Daniel Halpern, a big-city journalist covering the stigmata story, and Virginie Waters, the physician whose empirical beliefs are tested by this intrusion of the bizarre into quotidian life. Apparently, this is the second incidence of bleeding stigmata in this tiny town; 60 years ago, an immigrant woman from Ukraine exhibited the wounds. Soon there is yet another episode in the community, and finally a murder. An overwhelming sadness hovers over the story, with each character suppressing pain of a lost love. Although the plot is in a sense a mystery that Halpern tries to unravel, Cook is more preoccupied with the notion of the complexity of spiritual belief. "I'm trying to forgive myself for not being able to believe in the impossible," Halpern says after his meticulous lists and transcripts provide no solutions. The reader is left in the same ambiguous state, as Cook doesn't seem to arrive at the conclusions her own challenging questions seek. The South African-Canadian author writes gorgeous prose, but its sinuous self-absorption sometimes weighs down the narrative. Though the language here is to be savored, character development tends to be suffocated under its flowery density. Nevertheless, this is a promising debut by a writer passionately devoted to the beauty of the written word. (June)

Library Journal

Just before Easter, in the quiet town of Annex, Manitoba, an 11-year-old girl begins to bleed spontaneously, first from her palms and then from her feet and abdomen. Sixty years earlier, in the same place and at the same time of year, another Annex woman, this one a Ukrainian immigrant in the end stages of multiple sclerosis, exhibited the very same stigmata. Questions of scientific proof and faith in miracles perplex and preoccupy Daniel Halpern, a Winnipeg reporter investigating the story; Virginie Waters, the local doctor, newly arrived from Montreal to take over her father's former medical practice; and Molly Rutabaga, a lifelong resident and keen observer of the goings-on in Annex. Told through Molly's memoir, Daniel's notes and queries, and Virginie's journal entries in language that is spare and poetic, this strong first novel belongs in most public libraries.--Barbara Love, Kingston Frontenac P.L., Ont. Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Canadian poet Cook debuts with a teasing, lyrical inquest into a modern case of stigmata. Nothing's ever happened in the life of schoolgirl Donna Desjardins to explain why she should suddenly, in the week before Easter, begin bleeding from the palm of her left hand. As the week goes on, the spontaneous bleeding, for which doctors can find no source in any wound, migrates to one foot, then the other, then her side, then the crown of her head, before stopping just as abruptly and mysteriously. An empathetic imitation of the wounds of the suffering Christ? A product of hysterical neurosis? An elaborate fraud? Hard-bitten journalist Daniel Halpern, sent from the Winnipeg Herald to Donna's small town of Annex to investigate after the first frenzy of reporters has ebbed, learns that this isn't the first case of stigmata in Annex history. Over 60 years ago, Alisha Hukic developed similar wounds a year before she died of multiple sclerosis—a condition that would have made it impossible for her to inflict such wounds on herself. And as Daniel, himself suffering from a debilitating liver tumor, gathers testimony from the locals, from circumspect Father Massimo Ricci to Donna's protective mother Kennedy, Alisha's niece Regina develops similar symptoms. Cook builds the story of Donna, "the book we are all trying to read," through a kaleidoscopic dossier of evidence that ranges from the "Gentle Reader" letters of Regina's companion Molly Rhutabaga to a life of the 14th-century saint Bella-Marie Lambe to the claim of an Indiana housewife to have seen Jesus' face in a spray of detergent on a windowpane. It all leads to a murder, described with insolent casualness, that raises more questions thanit answers. An enigmatic palimpsest of a novel reminiscent of D.M. Thomas's The White Hotel. But where Thomas was determined to penetrate to the heart of his mystery, Cook seems equally set on preserving her mystery all inviolate.