My Mother's Ghost

Jami van Haaften is a librarian and author of An Index to Selected
Canadian Provincial Government Publications for Librarians, Teachers and
Booksellers.

Margaret Buffie has written an absorbing and dramatic tale of the
supernatural. Readers are introduced to Jessica, a 16-year-old who moves
west from Manitoba to Alberta with her family after the death of her
brother. Will her father ever successfully manage the ranch resort they
now own? Can her mother ever recover from the mental anguish brought on
by her son’s death? These present-day pressures become interwoven with
glimpses of the past life of another child who lived at the ranch.

Each chapter presents the progress of events in the present-day life of
Jessica’s family, and at the same time documents through journal
entries the life of another family. The ranch seems haunted by this
earlier family, and Jessica explores their history. She and her mother
are drawn closer together as they experience the supernatural forces
around them, forces that seem to point to the tragic events in their
recent past. In facing the ghosts of the past, Jessica and her mother
are able to come to terms with the cause of their current unhappiness
and uncertainty. Highly recommended.