Where the Forest Meets the Stars is a first novel by Glendy Vanderah, and it's really good.

I've been having trouble for days finding anything readable in the house. I think I've been indoors for too long - it's not just been the social distancing, but the long months of nervous breakdown and my own bout of coronavirus and the seemingly endless process of recovery. My usual gusto for reading has been knocked out of me, but luckily today I found this lovely book, and with a background of classical music, I spent many relaxing and peaceful hours engaged with the incredibly realistic characters in the novel, and with a quirky and unusual plot line that's unlike anything I've read before.

Jo is a PhD student, spending the summer in southern Illinois studying the nesting success rates of indigo buntings, when Ursa stumbles into her life. Ursa is a little girl, dressed in pyjamas, barefoot, hungry, and bruised. Unwilling to share the truth about her problems here on Earth, Ursa tells Jo that she is an alien from the pinwheel galaxy in the constellation of Ursa Major, here to view five miracles before returning to her home planet. Jo's attempts to hand over the case and the girl to the police, or to get her into foster care simply do not work, and Jo becomes more and more attached to Ursa. Jo also becomes very attached indeed to her neighbour, the handsome if unstable Gabriel.

The story flows beautiful, although I will say that the last hundred pages of the novel were not as smooth as the first two hundred. I don't think it's a coincidence that the first part of the novel was set in a rural area among birds - the author herself has ornithological credentials and she's clearly more at home writing about what she loves. When the setting moves to an urban area - a large hospital in St. Louis - the writing is choppier. But this is a first novel! Obviously there won't be the absolute spit-and-polish of a more seasoned writer, and I did love the story.

This is the sort of book that sweeps you away and makes hours pass unbidden, and I hope Glendy Vanderah writes more books for me to disappear into.

Listened to while reading:
Tchaikovsky - Violin Concerto in D Major, soloist - Jascha Heifetz
Handel - Water Music
J.S. Bach - (Best of )Anna Magdalena's Notebook ( )

3.75 stars

Jo is a Ph.D.(?) student studying bird nests and is renting a place beside a forested area. When a little girl with bruises appears in her yard and refuses to go home, or even tell Jo her name or where she belongs, the girl says she came from the stars, from another planet. She eventually gives her name as Ursa Major. Whenever Jo tries to call the police to help get the girl home, the girl runs away. Ursa manages to wrap her finger around Jo (and their neighbour, the “Egg Man” Gabe), as Jo and Gabe try to figure out how to figure out where she came from and get her home again.

I loved the bird information in the book. And the astronomy info. I guess most of that was nearer the beginning of the book. (There was also plenty of Shakespeare mentioned.) I wasn’t sure what I’d think about this child from the stars, or another planet, thinking there might be some magical realism in the book (not my thing), but I ended up really liking it. I also quite liked Jo and Gabe’s relationship, and Jo’s best friend, Tabby, was fun, too. I took a ¼ star off for the far too unrealistic, happy, everything-tied-up-with-a-ribbon ending. ( )

“He said magic would keep her safe...Ursa opened her window wide every night, trying to let in lots of good magic” (312).

Another novel set under the magic of the stars. But while this one is mostly set under the stars in rural Illinois, it’s more about the magic and miracles we choose to believe in while in the presence of those stars. This is the story of two broken people who come in contact with a celestial being from another planet, at least that’s what little Ursa claims.

Jo, an ornithologist buried in her research, is too analytical and pragmatic to buy into Ursa’s fantasy world: “The girl lived as a parallel constellation. Like a child who obsessively colors within the lines, she had to regulate her every move or she might end up in the terrifying universe that lay beyond the shape she’d drawn to contain herself.”

Gabe, the Egg Man farmer and reclusive caretaker, is too closed off from people to have faith in Ursa’s Infinite Nest: “But take me out of my realm and kaplooey.” “Is that why you hate the grocery store?” He nodded. “If the line is long, sometimes I have to leave.” “Why?” “The horrific crush of humanity on my soul. Haven’t you ever felt it?” “I think I have—in Walmart.” “Yes! That place is the worst!”

But in the end, the scars that they carry and the love that sparks between the three of them—Jo and Gabe and Ursa—heals them all and makes them all believers in the magic of the stars. ( )

A quick read. Characters you cared about. Goodreads: In this gorgeously stunning debut, a mysterious child teaches two strangers how to love and trust again.After the loss of her mother and her own battle with breast cancer, Joanna Teale returns to her graduate research on nesting birds in rural Illinois, determined to prove that her recent hardships have not broken her. She throws herself into her work from dusk to dawn, until her solitary routine is disrupted by the appearance of a mysterious child who shows up at her cabin barefoot and covered in bruises.The girl calls herself Ursa, and she claims to have been sent from the stars to witness five miracles. With concerns about the child?s home situation, Jo reluctantly agrees to let her stay�just until she learns more about Ursa?s past.Jo enlists the help of her reclusive neighbor, Gabriel Nash, to solve the mystery of the charming child. But the more time they spend together, the more questions they have. How does a young girl not only read but understand Shakespeare? Why do good things keep happening in her presence? And why aren?t Jo and Gabe checking the missing children?s website anymore?Though the three have formed an incredible bond, they know difficult choices must be made. As the summer nears an end and Ursa gets closer to her fifth miracle, her dangerous past closes in. When it finally catches up to them, all of their painful secrets will be forced into the open, and their fates will be left to the stars.

I can’t remember the last time I read a book so good it made me put everything else aside so I could just finish the story. This was just that good. I quickly got invested in Jo’s, Ursa’s, and Gabe’s tale and couldn’t wait to find out how everything turned out. All three of them were wounded, for differing reasons, and together, they brought healing to one another. I also loved Ursa’s quick intelligence, her vivid imagination, and the joy she brought to every little thing. Her spark (I loved that she called them “quarks”) was contagious enough to light Gabe’s way out of his suffering, as well as Jo’s road to Gabe.

I can certainly see why Forest is classified as Women’s Fiction; with Jo as the main character and Ursa the main focus, and both of them being exceptionally strong females in harsh circumstances, the story is sometimes suspenseful, sometimes heartbreaking, but hopeful throughout. It’s a real “feel-good” book that warmed me to my core.

There’s nothing not to love about this story. Very highly recommended. ( )