True Believer - by Nicholas Sparks

It might be because I am a practicing Hindu – follower of a religion that prescribes cremating the dead - or it might be that I have seen too many Hollywood horror movies in which the zombies tumble out of their graves to attack the nearest unsuspecting small town, but I have always been a little uneasy about the cemeteries.

So I wondered about the nonchalant way in which everyone seems to be walking into the Boone Creek Cemetery – despite the sightings of the ghostly lights that dance among the headstones there on foggy nights. Don’t worry, I haven’t gone nuts. I am talking about the novel “True Believer” - by Nicholas Sparks – that I just finished reading.

The story in a nutshell goes something like this. Jeremy Marsh is a journalist – the kind who investigate every reported incident allegedly involving the supernatural and try to explain it using Science. After his successful unmasking of a famous psychic - who is supposed to connect with those who have passed on – he hears about these lights at Boone Creek. He meets many small town Americans there – Doris who runs the restaurant Herbs, Lexie who is the Librarian, Rodney who is the deputy Sheriff and Mayor Gherkin. And he sees the mysterious lights that dance about in that slowly sinking cemetery.

I am not a fan of romantic novels so I must admit that it felt a bit funny reading about a middle aged journalist, with one failed marriage under his belt, who travels to this small-time American town in search of mystery and finds instead a mysterious woman who brings him at an important crossroad in his life.

But then the dancing lights on the foggy nights more than made up for it. :-)