Publisher's Weekly Review
The title of romance writer Smith's latest (after On Bear Mountain) alludes to a pink marble hideaway on the family estate in Burnt Stand, N.C., where Darl Union grows up fabulously wealthy but lonely, the orphan granddaughter of Swan Hardigree Samples, town autocrat and owner of Hardigree Marble Company. On a hot summer day in 1972, seven-year-old Darl watches as 10-year-old Eli Wade and his family push their broken-down pickup into town. She knows from the minute she sees Eli that the two of them are meant to be together, but the Wades' presence in Burnt Stand stirs up long-buried troubles. When those troubles culminate in a murder, the Wades suffer the consequences, and Darl and Eli are torn apart. Twenty-five years later, Darl has become a defense attorney passionately devoted to mercy and justice, and Eli is a reformed high-stakes gambler, with millions of dollars to spend on pet causes. After Swan suffers a heart attack, Darl and Eli find themselves back in Burnt Stand, still in love, but haunted by the unsolved mystery in their past. The exotic family history of the Hardigrees (involving prostitution, arson, out-of-wedlock births, half-siblings of different races and smalltown empire-building) colors the tale in florid shades, and Smith piles on plot twists with a heavy hand. The late 20th-century setting is a bit incongruous the dynastic goings-on seem better suited to an earlier era but Smith knows how to generate genuine emotion, and readers will be wringing out their hankies by the time the protracted conclusion rolls around. Southern author tour. (Feb. 2) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Kirkus Review
In her seventh, a southern gothic about family secrets (but no mystery), Smith (On Bear Mountain, 2001, etc.) keeps nothing secret for long-and makes some curious authorial choices in her longwinded revelations of who done it, why, and how all the families are intertwined. Darl Union, a poor little rich girl being raised by her grandmother, Swan Hardigree, a woman as cold and hard as the marble quarry that produces her fortune, has no friends except the granddaughter of Swan's elegant mulatto assistant, Matilda. One day a stonecutter's family arrives, and soon enough Darl and the son, Eli Wade, fall in love. Few will be surprised to learn that some generations back there was a love that crossed color lines, and that as a result the Wades, Swan, and Matilda are all related. When Aunt Clara, Swan's no-good sister (a femme fatale from central casting), arrives demanding money, it's clear that she'll come to a bad end. And Darl is there when she does, killed by Grandmother Swan and buried in the Stone Flower Garden. Family loyalty demands that Darl say nothing when Eli's father is accused of being the one responsible for Clara's disappearance-and is killed as a result. Twenty-five years later, Darl is a defense lawyer specializing in death penalty cases, trying to appease the guilt that torments her. A mysterious man enters her life and, though she doesn't recognize Eli, the reader is privy to his secret identity all along. When Darl finally discovers who Eli is, she takes him to the Stone Flower Garden and digs up Clara's bones, thereby proving his father's innocence and clearing the way for Eli and her to acknowledge their mutual love. Cliched plot and stereotyped characters won't stand in the way, for those who like them, of the pleasures of a family romance in lush settings.
Booklist Review
The sins of the fathers, or in this case, the great-grandmother, wreak havoc on the lives of two young women. Darl, raised by her grandmother, who controls the town of Burnt Stand, North Carolina, has only one friend, Karen, the orphaned granddaughter of Darl's grandmother's African American assistant. In 1972 Darl and Karen, age 7, witness the arrival of the impoverished Wade family, and Darl falls for Eli, a 10-year-old mathematical genius. Three years later, Darl, not privy to the dark secrets in her family's past, inadvertently sets a chain of events in motion that leads to two deaths. Twenty-five years later Darl meets Solo, a superwealthy rogue who reminds her of Eli, and Karen, now a glamorous soap star, returns to Burnt Stand just as an emotional maelstrom whipped up generations ago reaches its climax. Smith, a remarkably talented and prolific (see above) storyteller who creates unforgettable characters immersed in complex situations of love, loss, and redemption, combines the southern quirkiness of Carl Hiaasen with the literary romance of Barbara Kingsolver. --Diana Tixier Herald
Library Journal Review
Smith is popular enough 1.5 million copies of her books are in print but the publisher is positioning this as her break-out novel. In this Southern Gothic, Darleen and Wade are childhood friends torn apart by a murder. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.