When Ren was only twelve years old, she lost her older brother, Scott, to a car crash. Since then, Scott has been a presence in her life, appearing as a snatch of song or a reflection in the moonlight. Now, twenty-five years later, her talent for connecting with the ghosts around her has made her especially sensitive as an archaeologist. More than just understanding the bare outline of how our ancestors lived, Ren is dedicated to re-creating lives and stories, to breathing life into those who occupied this world long before us. Now she is on the cusp of the most important discovery of her career, and it is ghosts who are guiding her way. But what do two long-dead Mimbres women have to tell Ren about herself? And what message do they have about her developing relationship with a fellow archaeologist, the first man to really know her since her brother's death?
I don't know how accurate the elements of the story that touch on the Mimbres pottery and archaeology are, but they certainly read as well-researched and quite interesting. Unfortunately, to me those were the most engaging parts of the book. I found Ren a diffcult character to relate to and never fell that engaged or involved with her as a person. Scott seemed two dimensional at best and there was certainly no reason I could see for the two of them to fall in love, if indeed what they had was love. The flashbacks to the lives of the Mimbres artists who haunt Ren and her dig sites were again more engaging than the lives of the supposed main characters which made this book something of a slog to get through.
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