Vampire-fans will be disappointed at the total lack of the creatures in young Rice's novel, but there's little else to complain about. Set in Rice's hometown of New Orleans, A Density of Souls begins at the edge of high school and concludes on the lip of adulthood. While Density of Souls lacks some of Normal Girl 's rough and raw energy, it is, perhaps, unfair to compare them. The four of them flew down Chestnut Street, their wheels bouncing over flagstones wrenched by gnarled roots of oak trees. They passed high wrought-iron fences beyond which Doric and Ionic columns held up the facades of Greek Revival mansions, their screened porches shrouded in tangles of vines.
Rice spends a lot of time and energy establishing a sense of place.
While some of his descriptions are quite riveting, A Density of Soul 's pace suffers as a result. It's a worthy first effort, however. Maturity is not lacking in Norris Church Mailer's first novel, Windchill Summer. Set in small-town Arkansas in the late 1960s, Church Mailer's voice is sharp, clear and perfectly modulated for the area about which she's chosen to write. In its own way Windchill Summer brings us Southern echoes as strong and clean as those given us by Rebecca Wells in her Ya-Ya sisters series .