Effie Crackalkbee (A.K.A. Jane Croy), the loving, daring, and generous protagonist of Crane Spreads Wings, is a self-proclaimed T'ai Chi warrior who practices the ancient movements that center her spirit even as she sets out to recreate her life on the west coast. When we meet her she is Jane Croy and she has run away from Alan Croy, her husband of a month because, as she says, he has misrepresented himself. He is not writing the novel he promised to work on while she works on her Phd.thesis. Nevertheless, within hours, still on the east coast, she too is misrepresenting herself when she runs into Gled Saltonstall, a pilot, and single father of an adorable little boy. Taking back her maiden name, Effie signs on as the boy's nanny for the summer, neglecting to mention she is married. When it turns out that Alan and Gled share the same summer community, Effie's little ommission begins to take on enormous dimension: another marriage, a pregnancy, the west coast, from thesis writing to birdwatching. This moving, vastly entertaining novel, envolves three families in Effie's bigamy and at heart this is a book about family love, from the most conventional to the most bizarre. By the end of Effie's journey of discovery, she will have found her balance, creating a new life not only for herself but also for all those whom she loves and who love her.