Name: Skyward
Price: 5.99
Rating: 4.5 (32 reviews)

- $5.99

Mary Alice Monroe returns to the captivating and mystical South Carolina Lowcountry, a place of wild beauty and untamed hearts, to tell the moving story of healing, hope and new beginnings....

E.R. nurse Ella Majors has seen all the misery that she can handle. Burned-out and unsure of her next step, she accepts the temporary position as caregiver to Marion Henderson, a frightened five-year-old who suffers from juvenile diabetes.

But Ella soon realizes there is more sorrow in the isolated home than the little girl's illness. Harris Henderson, a single father, is withdrawn, seemingly better able to deal with the wild birds he rehabilitates in his birds-of-prey sanctuary than with his own daughter.

Then something magical begins to happen: the timeless beauty of the South Carolina coast and the majestic grace of the wild birds weave a healing spell on the injured hearts at the sanctuary. But a troubled mother's unexpected return will test the fragile bonds of trust and new love, and reveal the inherent risks and exhilarating beauty of flying free.

PUBLISHERS WEEKLY JUN 16, 2003

A devoted naturalist and native of South Carolina's Low Country, Monroe is in her element when describing the wonders of nature and the ways people relate to it. In her previous book, The Beach House, she sprinkled information about loggerhead turtles throughout her romance. This time around, she caters to bird-watchers. Harris Henderson handles injured birds with ease at his birds of prey rehab center, but he has no idea how to manage his diabetic five-year-old Marion. Enter Ella Majors, a pediatric nurse-turned-nanny. As Ella cares for the girl, she becomes an integral part of the Hendersons' lives and, before long, Harris begins to see her as more than a plain caretaker. Hauntingly beautiful relationships between birds and people add texture to the story. Most notable are the connections among an elderly black man named Lijah and his eagle, Santee, and a rooster that appears to guard both the center and Brady, a troubled teen working off a community service sentence. Monroe (aka Mary Alice Kruesi) successfully combines elements of women's fiction and romance in this lyrical tale. While it follows a more romantic arc than her previous book, it has enough depth and sophistication to appeal to a broad base of readers.

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