My thoughts:
I found the setting to have an interesting history and the book was well written, but I'm not a big fan of the supernatural and found it confusing. However, the book has excellent reviews so it may just have been something I wasn't in the mood to read at this time.
Goodreads review
Art teacher Mira Fenn's life was curiously lacking in color until the day she learned of a mysterious inheritance from her birthmother--a long-abandoned house in New Mexico. Dim childhood memories begin to brighten in Mira's mind--her colorfully exotic mother, the curiously silent women who were her mother's servants.
Returning to New Mexico, Mira discovers that the house is a faded thing, looked after by the charismatic Domingo Navidad. But when Mira dreams of her childhood home, it is a riot of color--and she and Domingo soon set to work to bring her dreams to life.
Color brings more than just an old house back to life. The bright paint Mira applies to wood and plaster seems to reach into her soul, to awaken powers trapped in a decades-long slumber. The silent women reappear, carrying with them a great secret. Convinced her mother is still alive, Mira searches for her, journeying through a sea of light and color to a time and place far from her own.
Who and what she finds there will alter her world forever.
"Child of a Rainless Year is a novel about those spaces in between. It is about the dichotomy between expectation and reality, about past and present, about parents and children, mothers and daughters, loving and the fear of love. Color weaves through these contradictions, not so much pulling them together as highlighting differences and similarities. Historical events prove to be as important as current events, and even a house has opinions on how things should be done."
Jane Lindskold
