Katie Mason has a broken heart. Recently abandoned -- in a relationship that, let's face it, was no good for her anyway -- she has fled from her Boston home to a remote cottage on an island in northern Alaska, where she hopes to paint, sculpt and generally retreat from the world while her emotions mend.

But Katie finds that healing isn't as easy as she hoped. She mopes, she eats and drinks just enough to survive, she occasionally drives to town (by boat and truck) for necessary supplies and as little human interaction as possible. And she doesn't make art, finding that her creative side has been silenced in the numb aftermath of her pain.

Then she meets Lucas Tulukkam, an Inuit handyman who fixes her roof and makes a place for himself in her life. It's all going well, right? Things don't seem to be changing around her -- and spring seems to have stalled in its arrival -- but that's OK as long as she doesn't have to face up to the raw edges of a pain that she still can't address.

Right?

In one of her rare conversations with a local storekeeper -- the closest thing she has to a friend in the town -- Katie learns a bit of local lore, including the story of how the mythological figure of Raven each year must remember to wake the world from its winter rest. It's not possible that Raven forgot, is it? Has Katie herself somehow distracted this godlike trickster from fulfilling his most important duty?

Author John Adcox has written a charming tale that traces Katie's path from despair to complacency and, eventually, back to herself. It's a story filled with symbolism, from the silent, untapped raw materials of her art to the snow that blankets her surroundings. And Adcox writes with a descriptive tone that falls short of poetry but still sounds lyrical in your head.

Readers who enjoy the occasional intrusion of folklore and fairytales into a modern setting will enjoy Raven Wakes the World, which sits comfortably on a shelf with the likes of Charles de Lint (whose own words of praise adorn the book jacket) and Emma Bull. It's a quick read -- I finished it in a day -- but the story will stick with you.