When the beautiful Magdalena Chavez and her troubled, passionate son move into the small town of Las Madres, New Mexico, it doesn"t take long for the discerning among the townspeople to discover that they are "other." Magdalena is a teller of stories that delight many, but also challenge the assumptions of one and all. Soon the reader is seduced into an enchanted world in which the boundary between reality and fantasy is always on the point of collapsing. The main characters must maintain a difficult balance between opposing polarities-sacred and profane, forbidden desire and ruthless power-a balance that seems to come instinctively to the simple but knowing inhabitants of Las Madres. Fairhead is utterly at home in this environment, evoking it with a mixture of precision and lyrical intensity. Whether she is describing the tumult of a bullfight, the stillness of a work of art or the vast, cinematic splendour of the New Mexico landscape, her voice is always pitch perfect. As the title...