Book II of the Christmasville Trilogy:
If Mary Jane was motivated by curiosity, determination and a spirit of independence in Book I of the Christmasville Trilogy, Madeleine and Esmeralda are driven by purposes quite different in Book II. For both girls, it is the embracing of hope - of salvation for Madeleine, and illumination for Esmeralda - that propels them along their parallel paths.
Madeleine, a daughter of the Magian line, is bequeathed "calinda al emeris magus" - the "gift of the fourth king" - which enables her to perceive what others cannot. But, as with many gifts, there are prices to pay for such things. The bloom of a rose, or the fruit of a tree, does not come without the promise of a thorn, or the threat of blight.
For Esmeralda, the fortuneteller who once read Tarot cards for Mary Jane on First Night, the journey forward is impeded by that affliction which haunts everyone who calls Christmasville home: memory - the multiple perforations of memory, which prevent her from summoning images of her long lost father, her mother, her brother Oscar...and of what became of them all.
As readers follow Esmeralda and Madeleine in their journeys, they discover the origin and dynamics of the colossal clock tower, the functions of the giant transformers that generate much more than heat and light for the idyllic town of Christmasville, the "secret of lightning" and the remarkable phenomenon of "thin places." But for the astute reader - the reader who discovered in "Christmasville" a confirmation of that sometimes elusive, though always enduring virtue of faith -"Finding Christmasville" will be a journey of illumination, an epiphany, a celebration in that most wondrous and fragile of human aspirations: hope.