Sudden Light (Stein)

Book Reviews
Rich and textured...Stein is resourceful, cleverly piecing together the family history with dreams, overheard conversations, and reminiscences...a tale well told.
Seattle Times


A captivating page-turner.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


Witty, atmospheric and filled with acutely observed characters, Stein’s ghost story possesses uncommon depth.
People


Set against the stunning beauty of the Pacific Northwest and told with expert angst, empthy, poetry, and mystery, Stein has created an ode to nature and redemption...in turns touching and classically sinister, with surprising twists.
Interview Magazine


A haunting family saga.
Good Housekeeping


With its single setting and small cast of characters...the story’s feeling of claustrophobia adds to the tension. Stein dramatizes the various tensions between his characters well.... The history of the Riddell family fails to shock after a while, even as events in the present lead to the tragic denouement.
Publishers Weekly


[O]ffers a touch of magic. [Trevor Riddell's father] wants to shove aside ailing grandpa and sell the house and land to a developer. But the ghost of family patriarch Elijah wants the land returned to wilderness to make amends for the millions of trees harvested by the Riddell Timber Company.
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Haunting in all the right ways.
Booklist


A Sudden Light is the best of many genres: a ghost story, a love story, historical fiction….a truly killer read…a bold, poignant book about wealth, family ties, and the power—and fallacy—of memory.
BookPage


This monotonous multigenerational tale of a family and its timber empire will have the reader sawing logs in no time.... The fatal flaw here is the author's decision to have a teenager narrate this complex, sprawling story; ...no matter how precocious he was, he couldn't possibly have had the vantage point to describe the whole situation.... A repetitive, poorly conceived work of pulp fiction. Frankly, we're stumped.
Kirkus Reviews