Synopsis: A mother and her daughters drive for days without sleep until they crash their car in rural Oklahoma. The mother, Amaranth, is desperate to get away from someone she's convinced will follow them wherever they go--her husband. The girls, Amity and Sorrow, can't imagine what the world holds outside their father's polygamous compound. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Bradley, a farmer grieving the loss of his wife. At first unwelcoming to these strange, prayerful women, Bradley's abiding tolerance gets the best of him, and they become a new kind of family.
Review: I am so surprised that this is debut novel! It reads like a 5th or 6th book- where the author had her grove of storytelling, and the reader is comfortable with it! This isn't a story that will leave you when you finish reading it- I found it popping back into my head days later, when a similar subject came up- how far will a parent's love save a child, or are we as the author says "bound to our lives and our pasts, and it can feel like they are strapped to us, like there is no escape from all we have done and been"?
Despite Amaranth's best intentions, her oldest daughter is still bound to her beliefs, to their church and family,and unable (unwilling) to give up her status, as their chosen spiritual leader. No matter the ugly secrets that about and twist in the ribbons of the story, Sorrow believes she can only be herself, when she is back where she 'belongs'. Perhaps because Amity is younger, and was not 'chosen', she has the ability to see what the freedoms being offered to her truly mean, and how her life can be different, and better.
At it's heart, the book is a cautionary tale of how the choices we make as parents, when our children are young, can set their lives in motion, in ways we did not expect. How if they are not given the ability to choose, to know options, they will stick to the path they know, no matter how wrong, stifling or limiting it may be. But it is also the story of redemption- how taking a chance and leaving the familiar can be a blessing and make your life better. Definitely pick this one up for a super Summer read!.
About the Author: Peggy Riley is a writer and playwright. She recently won a Highly Commended prize in the 2011 Bridport Prize. Her short fiction has been broadcast on BBC Radio and has been published in "New Short Stories 4", Mslexia Magazine, and as an app on Ether Books. Her plays have been commissioned and produced off-West End, regionally and on tour. She has been a festival producer, a bookseller, and writer-in-residence at a young offender's prison. Originally from Los Angeles, Peggy now lives on the North Kent coast in Britain. She is currently working on her second novel, which will be set in the women's internment camp on the Isle of Man during WWII.
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