THE LOVE TALKER

Peters again starts out with a likable, slightly different modern-gothic heroine—big, round-faced grad student Laurie—but this time the comedy doesn't hold up, the pacing bogs down, and the plotting slips into routine gears. Laurie and half-brother Doug both head for the Maryland homestead of their dear old rich rural kin—great-aunts Ida and Lizzie, great-uncle Ned—when Ida calls to tell them that poor eccentric Lizzie has finally gone right 'round the bend. And indeed they discover that Lizzie claims to have seen fairies in the forest—and has a strangely convincing photo to prove it. Could the fairies be for real But what about those taciturn, downtrodden teenage sisters living down the road who supposedly saw the fairies too? And could darkly sexy hired-hand Jeff, who seems too good to be true, have something to do with it all? Laurie starts sleuthing, there are the usual attempts on her life, family skeletons start a-tumbling, there's a last-minute rescue of Laurie from bondage in a cave—and there's even a happy resolution (more family skeletons) to her troublingly incestuous feelings for brother Doug. Serviceable enough by garden-variety-gothic standards, but Peters usually scampers on a higher level than that—so this is a hackworky disappointment with only a very few frolicsome Peters touches.