Book Review: A Hand to Hold in Deep Water by Shawn Nocher

     Disclosure / Disclaimer: I received this ebook, free of charge, from Blackstone Publishing, via #Netgalley, for blog review purposes. No compensation, monetary or in kind, has been received or implied for this post. Nor was I told how to post about them. All opinions are my own. 

Synopsis:

Willy Cherrymill and his stepdaughter, Lacey, are deeply bruised by a past brimming with unanswered questions. It’s been thirty years since May DuBerry, Willy’s young wife and Lacey’s mother, abandoned them both, leaving Willy to raise Lacey alone.

Lacey Cherrymill is smart, stubborn, and focused. She’s also single mother to a young daughter recently diagnosed with a devastating illness. The last thing she needs to think about right now is the betrayal that rocked her childhood. Reluctantly, she has returned to her rural beginnings, a former dairy farm in the Maryland countryside, and to Willy, a man steeped in his own disappointments and all the guilt that goes with them.

Together they will pool their wobbly emotional resources to take care of Lacey’s daughter, Tasha, all the while trying to skirt the issue of May’s mysterious disappearance. But try as she might, Lacey can’t leave it alone. Just where is May DuBerry Cherrymill and why did she leave them, and how is it that they have never talked about the wreckage she left behind?

Review:

This is NOT a beach read- it's slow like molasses, which can be a good thing, and in this case it is (though I think some shortening could have helped). Telling multiple stories at one time- both that of Lacey (and her daughter) and her mother, the story goes back and forth in time. The time doesn't slow it down, it's the scene setting and narrative prose. While beautiful to read, it slows you down a bit. It's a story of what makes us family- is it blood, or is it love and need? Sometimes the help we need to figure that out comes from unexpected avenues, and provides a future you don't see coming. Ultimately though, it's a story of forging your own path and unburdening yourself from a past that is carried down, and moving on to tell your story.

About the Author:

Shawn Nochers compelling short stories have appeared in numerous literary magazines, including SmokeLong Quarterly, Pithead Chapel, Eunoia Review, and MoonPark Review, and she has been longlisted or won honorable mentions from both SmokeLong Quarterly and Glimmer Train. She earned her master of arts in writing at Johns Hopkins University, has given wings to two children, and lives with her husband and an assortment of sassy rescue animals in Baltimore, Maryland, where she writes in a room of her own. This is her first novel.