Watch us shine A novel

De Los Santos revisits Cornelia Brown, heroine of Love Walked In, for a saccharine story of a mother's mysterious past. Cornelia, 44, is reeling after a man held a gun to her younger child's head in a grocery store. After she learns her mother, Eleanor, has been hit by a car, she packs up her two kids and drives south with her husband to Virginia to care for her. While Eleanor recovers in a rehab center, her memory begins to falter and she requests of Cornelia, "Bring me the northern lights." Baffled, Cornelia realizes how little she knows about her mother and enlists her sister and a friend to help understand the request. Flashbacks to the 1960s reveal details about Eleanor's sister, a kindhearted painter named Martha who writes to Eleanor about her boyfriend, who invites her to move with him to a utopian community of artists and writers. As Cornelia discovers a dark side to the utopia, she wrestles with the feeling that she can't protect her children from the dangers of the world. Unfortunately, the author's flatly drawn characters are depicted as either good or evil, and the cutesy conceits tend to grate. This one's for diehards only. Agent: Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency. (June)

The fifth in de los Santos's "Love Walked In" series (following I'd Give Anything) returns to the tender family and friends who surround Eleanor Brown and her daughter, Cornelia. It begins with life-altering moment for both women. When Eleanor has an accident, Cornelia leaves her beloved husband Teo and their children to help care for her. Cornelia recently had a frightening altercation with a gunman, so leaving home is something she needs to do to gain some clarity after the horrifying event. Nursing her mother gives Cornelia time to dig back into the history of Eleanor's life, and she uncovers some big secrets as her research leads her to the North Carolina beach town where a young Eleanor ("Ellie") grew up. The chapters' perspectives switch back and forth between Ellie and Cornelia, flipping from the 1960s to the present with ease. VERDICT Acclaimed best-seller de los Santos's writing is effusive and lush, painting poignant scenes like the stroke of an artist's brush. Her books and characters have a wide following, and her fans will be eagerly awaiting this lovely series installment that can also be read as a stand-alone.--Beth Liebman Gibbs