Red-Tailed Hawk

Red-tailed Hawk is the second novel in Nancy Schoellkopf's Easter family series and it takes place some two decades after Yellow-billed Magpie which I also reviewed earlier this month. The first book explored Samantha's coming of age and her blossoming relationship with fellow teacher Charlie. Now we get to see how their daughter, Mariah, reacts to an unexpected family bereavement and the strange repeated appearances, both actual and symbolic, of red-tailed hawks in her life.

A frequently revisited theme within this novel is that nothing is truly a coincidence. I liked how Schoellkopf weaves this maxim around her tale and uses the Easter's family's strong beliefs in the mystical world to explain actions and decisions which otherwise could have seemed rashly impetuous! Red-tailed Hawk is slow to get going. A lot of background information is offloaded early on which I found irritating at times because I would have preferred to have been shown our leading characters more clearly. However, once the road trip search for a stolen family heirloom gets underway I became more engrossed in the story and especially liked the cameo portrayals of the cantankerous antique shop owner and waitress Cherry.

Perhaps the individual towns visited en route could have benefited from greater detail in their descriptions because one did seem much like another, despite Mariah and her family travelling hundreds of miles across America between them. Red-tailed Hawk does not have the grounding in place that characterised Yellow-billed Magpie and I felt some kind of anchor of this sort was needed to counterbalance the journey. More time spent exploring the supernatural story elements would also have helped me I think. These scenes seemed overly rushed and I wasn't totally convinced by our story's sudden swerve in that direction. All in all though, Red-tailed Hawk is a nice coming-of-age story with a strong sense of spirituality and of family.