"deep character study"

Ballet dancer Julia Costell had a promising career but collapsed under the incredible pressure after suffering an eating disorder caused by a retort from her ballet instructor. She managed to land in Kansas City as a guidance counselor at Harrington Arts Academy, a magnet school for talented middle year students in the performing arts. Julia knows first hand that those with wealth have a monster edge in the admittance program as they can afforded the best private tutors, which leads her to wonder how thirteen years old Dell Jordan, daughter of a dead addict, made the cut.

Counseling Dell, who struggles with the academic classes, Julia recognizes a talented but frightened young lady with no support system; in other words she sees her as a young teen with potential to go far as a ballerina but had no support system. They forge a relationship in which Julia helps Dell cope and improve her grades while Dell introduces Julia to an after-school program for underprivileged kids. In spite of her dedication, Julia is in trouble of losing her job when her supervisor demands she apologize for trying to help a student using drugs as the truth need not apply when money is involved.

Though too many of life lessons come together at the same time overwhelming the reader and Julia, the lead character learns through the school of hard knocks what is important and what is not. Dell proves to be her catalyst that turns her introspective so that she can see inside herself how others perceive her. Fans of a deep character study will want to read DRENCHED IN LIGHT as Lisa Wingate writes about the downside caused by internal and external pressure of performing.

Harriet Klausner

Reviewed by Harriet Klausner
Posted July 8, 2006

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Summary

Deep in my heart, a part of me will always be barefoot, running through the shallows of Mulberry Creek, with my eyes closed and my arms stretched out like I could fly.

Julia Costell never expects that the diary entry of a thirteen-year-old girl will be what saves her. Once a gifted ballet dancer, Julia understands the joy of body and soul lost in a perfect moment. But after buckling under the demands of a professional dance career, she's landed with a thud in an unglamorous job as a guidance counselor at a performing arts high school. Living back home with her parents, and feeling lost, Julia is afraid she'll never soar again. Until the day young Dell Jordan is sent to her office.

In Dell's writing, Julia recognizes not only her own despair, but also luminous sparks of hope. But as Julia fights to forge a brighter future for one disadvantaged student, she is drawn into startling undercurrents of conflict and denial with the academy. Only when she is test in ways she never could have imagined does she begin to discover where real meaning and fulfillment lie, and realize that even though her life has seemed off course, she's been on the right path all along.