In this unpredictable and absorbing debut, Stein intriguingly blurs the line between legend and conventional reality. Two years ago in a remote Alaskan village, Jenna Rosen's five-year-old son, Bobby, fell out of a boat and drowned, and Jenna was unable to save him. Unable to come to terms with her grief, Jenna leaves her husband in Seattle and returns to the site of the tragedy. Once there, she encounters an assortment of sinisterly quirky characters and learns much about the Indian part of her heritage. She soon comes to a startling conclusion: either she's losing her mind, or her son's soul has been abducted by the kushtaka‘Tlingit spirits that are half man, half otter‘and can be rescued only by a shaman. As Jenna seeks both to lay her son's soul to rest and to quiet her own guilt and grief, Stein weaves a moving tale that ably charts the gaps between rationalistic and animistic worldviews. Certain elements of the Tlingit legends may remind readers of Dracula lore: human blood breaks kushtaka spells; domestic dogs are their enemies. Occasional shifts to present-tense narration are jarring intrusions, but, for most of the novel, Stein's restrained prose is a good vehicle for Jenna's examination of the nature of religious faith and belief. (Mar.) FYI: Stein, a documentary filmmaker, is the great-grandson of a Tlingit Indian. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Her upscale Seattle lifestyle lost meaning for Jenna Rosen when her young son drowned in Alaska. On the second anniversary of his death, she impulsively takes a ferry to Wrangell, where she grew up and which is not far from the drowning site. Once there, Jenna often feels menaced; even as a dog appears to protect her, shape-changing kushtaka (Indian spirits) repeatedly threaten her life‘corporal and eternal. Her husband, Robert, arrives in Wrangell after he learns from a private investigator that she is living with a young fisherman. Only when a shaman risks his life to save Jenna and to help put their son's soul to rest are the Rosens able to resolve their grief. Stein's richly textured first novel, drawing on his Tlingit heritage and award-winning filmmaking experience, is layered with vivid descriptions and characters. Recommended for all fiction collections.‘V. Louise Saylor, Eastern Washington Univ. Libs., Cheney (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Ingratiating, mildly spooky thriller debut about feckless yuppies whose mythic escapades with creepy Tlingit bogeymen lead to romance and redemption. Two years after her four-year-old son drowns beneath the dark waters off the Alaskan coastal town of Wrangell, Jenna Rosen is still tortured by feelings of guilt and loss. Fleeing her boorishly insensitive husband, Robert, a thriving Seattle real-estate broker, she drives his prized BMW aimlessly throughout the night. Eventually, she ditches the car and, after a few carefree swipes of her credit card, acquires a new wardrobe from Banana Republic and a ticket on an Alaskan ferry that takes her back to Wrangell and the boarded-up house where her part-Tlingit grandmother died. Meanwhile, in another part of Wrangell, professional Tlingit shaman Dr. David Livingstone (who quietly endures numerous ""I presume"" greetings) encounters many ""stolen souls"" haunting a new tourist hunting lodge. Hired at the behest of Japanese investors by the resort's disbelieving project manager, Livingstone finds the area filled with kushtaka--mythological, otterlike shape-changers that snatch the souls of people who've died without being cremated, or who've merely become lost in a dank, woodsy never-never land where these souls are rapidly transformed into even more kushtaka. Back in Seattle, Robert is suddenly terrified to be without his wife and hires Joey, a repugnant private detective, to find her. Joey does find Jenna--in the arms of twentysomething Alaskan slacker/fisherman, a new romantic interest that'll give her the courage to join up with Oscar, the friendly spirit dog, and the (literally) presumptuous Dr. Livingstone, to snatch back her dead son's soul. A supernatural thriller with an alternately satiric and solemn take on New Age spirituality. At best, more pleasing than profound. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Still grieving two years after the death of Bobby, her five-year-old son, Jenna Rosen takes off one day, leaving her husband behind. Heading north from Seattle, she finds herself on a ferry to Wrangell, Alaska, where her grandmother, a Tlingit Indian, lived. Wrangell is also near Thunder Bay, the fishing resort where Bobby drowned. On the ferry, Jenna is given a necklace with a charm representing a kushtaka, and an old women tells her the Tlingit legend--that the kushtaka are shape-shifting soul stealers who inhabit a kind of twilight region between the living and the dead. In Wrangell, Jenna finds some solace in her friendship with a local fisherman. At the same time, strange events help convince her that Bobby has been adopted by the kushtaka, and she tracks down anyone, including a shaman, who can lead her to him. Her efforts culminate in a terrifying encounter. Though the novel has some elements of a supernatural thriller, it is actually stronger as a story about grieving and coming to terms with loss. --Mary Ellen Quinn