SOURCE: "Tell Your Friends," in Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 29, 1994, pp. 3, 13.

[In the review below, Woods offers high praise for The Serpent's Gift, lauding Lee's characterizations and focus on storytelling, family, and love.]

As a former member of corporate America who eventually turned to writing, I was extremely intrigued by this novel [The Serpent's Gift] written by Washington attorney Helen Elaine Lee. How many people have I met, fueled by the success of John Grisham or Michael Crichton, who report slaving away at their portable computers, trying to write the next Pelican Brief or Disclosure? Was Lee, I wondered, another one of these misguided souls who'd be better off writing legal briefs than literature? Should she be given that sage advice, "Honey, don't quit your day job"?

But after a marathon reading of The Serpent's Gift while I should have been enjoying the scenery on vacation, I...