Cold Heaven

This one started very encouragingly as something of an existential mystery, written in a voice that reminded me of Jonathan Carroll.

SPOILERS: The plot is a little bit like an inverted Rosemary's Baby, but instead of insane Satanist neighbors, you seemingly have God himself using miracles to arm-twist Marie, an atheist and adulteress widow/wife into doing His will, which is to reveal her vision of the Virgin Mary. The mysterious reanimation of Marie's dead husband and his subsequent fluctuating health seem to be acts of a petulant God who just won't take no for an answer. Questions of faith and free will seem to be the central focus of the book, but it devolves into repetitious, one-sided battles of will between God and Marie, and the "ending" was quite unsatisfying. I'm happy to have ambiguous endings, but this one felt like the author's phone rang and, after his conversation, he just decided "The heck with it - this book is OVER." It's not a bad book, just one that fell well short of its lofty ambitions.

For a book along the same lines that's very, VERY much better, try Stanislaw Lem's The Investigation. Rivka Galchen's superior Atmospheric Disturbances also has some parallels with Cold Heaven.