Novels
The Mermaid Necklace
Following her mother’s death in 2022, Manon Perrault finds the mermaid necklace given to her as a child that belonged to her 8th great grandmother Marie Pontonnier. The necklace is more than a keepsake; it becomes a magical portal across time.
Marie migrated by sea in 1656, at age thirteen, from France to Canada. As a fille à marier, Marie agreed to marry and help populate Nouvelle France. On her wedding day, a jealous suitor cast a spell making her husband impotent and resulting in a conviction of witchcraft. After three years with no children, the marriage was annulled. Her second husband was murdered within months. Soon after the birth from her second marriage, Marie wed for the third time and bore ten more children. In contrast to her ancestor, Manon, a professor of marine ecology, is married with no children—although that is her fervent desire. Manon uses the necklace to transport herself back through time to visit Marie. Marie’s advice to “follow your heart” helps Manon resolve her frustrations and gives her an in-depth perspective on life and death. The mermaid necklace serves as the threshold to connect their lives and as a meaningful symbol for both.
Read “An Analysis of Generational Healing in Sandra Schumm’s The Mermaid Necklace Through the Lens of Depth Psychology” by Lois E. Wilkins, PhD APRN
Girl in a Cage
But for a novelist and a ghost, Anita might be one of the hundreds of migrant children still separated from her family after crossing the border. Girl in a Cage is a novel of hope for our time about journeys—replete with danger and confinement—to find personal freedom. After a novelist moves to Kansas in 2018, she is visited by a ghost who wants her to rescue a young Mexican immigrant girl he saw with a brutish man; all the while, the girl's deported mother awaits any word of her daughter. Five main characters intersect and cross boundaries of different types: between nations, between life and the world of spirits, between truth and fiction, freedom and entrapment. Ana López de Domínguez and her daughter Anita migrate from Mexico, the gambler Jack Collins becomes entangled in juvenile sex trafficking, and Antoine Benet is transformed into a ghost who enlists novelist Claire Schmidt’s help to liberate Anita. Girl in a Cage, like American Dirt, deals with immigration problems but, like The House of Spirits, offers a hopeful aspect of magical realism.