May 2023 MBR The General Fiction Shelf

The General Fiction Shelf

The Lede To Our Undoing
Donald Mengay
Saddle Road Press
https://saddleroadpress.com
9781736525890, $24.00, PB, 268pp

https://www.amazon.com/Lede-Our-Undoing-Donald-Mengay/dp/1736525891

Synopsis: Its 1970s in rust-belt America. An America that is experiencing the era of civil rights, the women's rights movement, and the gay rights movement -- as well as the birth of the environmental movement.

Twins Jake and Wren are raised in the white-flight suburb of Laurentine, not far from an industrial metropolis that was named in a much greener time the Forest City. The twin's parents, Harry and Florrie, are doing their best to keep their offspring on the straight and narrow, in keeping with what today we would call MAGA America, before it got the name.

But the two boys are not very good at coloring inside the lines. Wren falls in love with an African-American youth named Donald, and Jake falls in love first with Romeo and then Peacoat, with traumatic results. Their story is told by the family mutt, Molly, whose outsider status offers the reader a very special and insightful view of human foibles, and prejudices.

Critique: Deftly written, original, eloquent, compelling, and all the more impressive when considering that "The Lede To Our Undoing" by author Donald Mengay (and the first volume of a planned trilogy) was his debut as a novelist and will have a very special and particular appeal to readers with an interest in LGBTQ and social issue fiction. Mengay's narrative driven storytelling style raises to a level of literary excellence that is unreservedly recommended for both personal reading lists and community/academic library General Fiction collections. "The Lede To Our Undoing" is one of those novels that will linger in the mind and memory long after the book has been finished and set back upon the shelf.

Editorial Note: Donald Mengay (https://saddleroadpress.com/donald-mengay.html) grew up in a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked in a factory for a time and managed a bookstore. He began writing fiction in his early twenties. He taught Queer and Post-Humanist Lit at the City University of New York for over thirty years, as well as English at the University of Paris, Nanterre. During his years teaching he published several articles of queer criticism in academic journals that include among others Genders, Genre, and Minnesota University Press. He also co-published a book entitled Dis/Inheritance: New Croatian Photography, from Ikon Press.

Willa's Pursuit
Jim Bastian
Bower House
https://www.bowerhousebooks.com
http://www.wisconsinloggingcamp.com
9781942280682, $17.95, PB, 248pp

https://www.amazon.com/Willas-Pursuit-James-Bastian/dp/1942280688

Synopsis: In the winter of 1971, graduate student Willa immerses herself in a sensory deprivation tank for a routine psychological experiment. The hallucinations and delusions she experiences in the tank are considered normal side effects, but the sudden ability to speak fluent French is not!

Each time she enters the tank, she becomes more convinced the hallucinations are actually someone else's memories. Her boyfriend dismisses her delusions and resulting anxiety and depression as proof that she is having a psychotic break. But what if her new abilities mean something more?

Set in Wisconsin during the social turmoil and budding psychological science of the early 1970s, and inspired by actual events, Willa's pursuit of the source of her visions and fluency in French (a condition called xenoglossia) unearths an unlikely archaeological discovery and a shocking truth that changes her life forever.

Critique: A compelling and inherently fascinating read from cover to cover, "Willa's Pursuit" by Jim Bastian is a unique and deftly crafted novel that showcases the author's impressive and narrative driven storytelling skills. Especially and unreservedly recommended for community library fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Willa's Pursuit" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.99).

Editorial Note: James Bastian (http://www.wisconsinloggingcamp.com) earned an MBA and then proceeded to have a 35-year career in business, most recently providing corporate organizational and human resource assessments. He is also the author of "Wisconsin Logging Camp, 1921" (http://www.wisconsinloggingcamp.com).

Dinner Party
Sarah Gilmartin
Pushkin Press
www.pushkinpress.com
9781911590583, $16.95 PB, 272pp

https://www.amazon.com/Dinner-Party-Sarah-Gilmartin/dp/1911590588

Synopsis: Kate is a young woman who has taught herself to be careful, to be meticulous.

To mark the anniversary of a death in the family, she plans a dinner party ranging from the fancy table settings to the perfect Baked Alaska waiting in the freezer. Yet by the end of the night, old tensions have flared, the guests have fled, and Kate is spinning out of control.

But all we have is ourselves, her father once said, all we have is family.

Critique: All the more impressive when considering that "Dinner Party" is author Sarah Gimartin's debut as a novelist, the story is et between the 1990s and the present day, and ranges from a farmhouse in Carlow to Trinity College, Dublin. An inherently fascinating, deftly crafted, and memorably entertaining coming-of-age story replete with the complications of sibling relationships and the trauma of family secrets, "Dinner Party" is especially and unreservedly recommended for community library Contemporary General Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "Dinner Party" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.99).

Editorial Note: Sarah Gilmartin (https://pushkinpress.com/our-authors/sarah-gilmartin) is a critic who reviews fiction for the Irish Times. She is co-editor of the anthology Stinging Fly Stories and has an MFA from University College Dublin. She won Best Playwright at the inaugural Short+Sweet Dublin festival. Her short stories have been published in The Dublin Review, New Irish Writing and shortlisted for the RTE Francis MacManus Short Story Award. Her story "The Wife" won the 2020 Mairtin Crawford Award at BelfastBook Festival. Sarah recently received a bursary for her novel-in-progress from the Arts Council of Ireland.

Shelf Life
Martin Sneider
Forefront Books
https://www.forefrontbooks.com
9781637631683, $26.00, HC, 432pp

https://www.amazon.com/Shelf-Life-Martin-Sneider/dp/1637631685

Synopsis: As the son of Max Feldman, the self-proclaimed "sodbuster from Omaha" and brilliant founder of the successful fashion shoe store chain Fratelli Massimo, Josh Feldman has always known his destiny -- working alongside his father and one day succeeding him, a career path promised to him by Max.

Starting with one store in the 1950s financed by his mother's trust fund, his father has taken advantage of the heyday of shopping malls to grow the St. Louis-based business to hundreds of locations across the United States. At industry events, he's not just some Midwestern family business boss but a rock star courted by suppliers, shopping center developers, and the media.

Josh is eager to step into his father's role. Unlike his charismatic brother and his sophisticated New York-born and -bred mother, who inherited her powerful father's cunning but is more interested in literature and raising her sons,

Josh is passionate about the family business. He is his father's son and presumed successor. But as he comes of age, starts a family of his own, and works his way up in the business, Josh slowly begins to understand his father's penchant for treachery. With Max's ruthless ambition and his drive to be celebrated for his success, will Josh ever be allowed to succeed him?

When the family is divided over the future of the business, Josh must face the fact that his father's pledge to him may have exceeded its shelf life.

Critique: At the distinguished age of 80 years old, author Martin Sneider presents his debut novel "Shelf Life", the first of a projected series of four novels about fashion and family. Fascinating, original, and fun, "Shelf Life" is an extraordinary debut effort and will prove a welcome addition to community library Contemporary Literary and Jewish Fiction collections. A deftly crafted Jewish-American family saga about the rise of its fashion retailing empire and how it splits and ultimately devastates the family, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Shelf Life" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $13.99).

Editorial Note: A fashion retailing legend, Martin Sneider has been a leader in the shoe and clothing industries for more than five decades and has served as a multi-award-winning adjunct professor of retailing at the Olin School of Business at Washington University since 1992. At the Olin School of Business, Martin created and taught a course devoted to luxury goods merchandising and marketing that included trips with students to Milan, Paris, and London to visit the showrooms of Armani, Gucci, Louis Vuitton, Chanel, Burberry, and Cartier. He also served on the Alumni Board of Directors of Harvard Business School, was chairman of St. Louis Children's Hospital, and received the Distinguished Alumni award from Washington University. He is the author of a highly acclaimed nonfiction book on the shoe industry.

Outer Sunset
Mark Ernest Pothier
University of Iowa Press
www.uiowapress.org
Dreamscape Media
https://www.dreamscapepublishing.com
9781609388836, $17.00, PB, 266pp

https://www.amazon.com/Outer-Sunset-Mark-Ernest-Pothier/dp/1609388836

Synopsis: Jim Finley is a recently retired English teacher living alone on the shifting edge of San Francisco who has been set, unwittingly, on the back porch of life. Trying to harmonize the voices in his head, he sits most days by his stack of "to-do" books until, one day, his daughter comes home with the worst news of her life.

Everything changes. As his broken heart re-engages, he steps back into a new world. He sees his ex-wife has launched into a larger life than the one they'd shared. He is surprised to find it easier to talk to his son's immigrant girlfriend, or even the remains of a Russian saint, than to the young man he's raised. He misconnects with Carol (his first date in decades) a woman he enjoys talking with but doesn't quite hear.

Set in the pre-tech calm before the turn of this century, "Outer Sunset" is a deeply felt story about the intimate place where long-lasting growth occurs in our lives; how we revise, or live without, our dreams; how to love the flaws of those closest to you and watch a child grow away into someone better than you'd imagined; and how to be shaken by beauty amidst unimaginable loss and remain standing.

Critique: Deftly scripted from beginning to end, "Outer Sunset" is an original, compelling, memorable read by Mark Ernest Pothier, an exceptionally gifted novelist with a genuine flair for the kind of narrative driven storytelling and impressively crafted characters that keeps his readers raptly engaged and fully involved. While especially and unreservedly recommended for community and academic library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Outer Sunset" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $16.15) and as a complete and unabridged audiobook (Dreamscape Media, 9781666637571, $22.99, CD).

Editorial Note: Mark Ernest Pothier (https://www.outersunset.org) received a Nelson Algren Literary Award, and is the former public information officer for the California Council for the Humanities.

The Bird Hotel
Joyce Maynard
Arcade Publishing
www.arcadepub.com
c/o Skyhorse Publishing, Inc.
www.skyhorsepublishing.com
9781956763737, $29.99, HC, 432pp

https://www.amazon.com/Bird-Hotel-Novel-Joyce-Maynard/dp/1956763732

Synopsis: After a childhood filled with heartbreak, Irene, a talented artist, finds herself in a small Central American village where she checks into a beautiful but decaying lakefront hotel called La Llorona at the base of a volcano.

A novel by Joyce Maynard, "The Bird Hotel" tells the story of this young American who, after suffering tragedy, restores and runs La Llorona. Along the way we meet a rich assortment of characters who live in the village or come to stay at the hotel. With a mystery at its center and filled with warmth, drama, romance, humor, pop culture, and a little magical realism, "The Bird Hotel" has all the hallmarks of a Joyce Maynard novel which have made her a leading literary voice of her generation.

Critique: A sweeping saga of a novel spanning four decades and offering both lyricism and whimsey, "The Bird Hotel" is impressively informed by the more than twenty years of which author Joyce Maynard has spent in the small Mayan indigenous village in Guatemala. With her deftly scripted and narrative driven storytelling style, "The Bird Hotel" will be of special interest to readers the enjoy Hispanic/American and Magical Realism stories. While highly recommended for community and academic library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "The Bird Hotel" is also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $19.99).

Editorial Note: Over her fifty-year career, author Joyce Maynard has published hundreds of essays as well as eighteen books, both fiction and non-fiction, including the memoir At Home in the World and the novels To Die For and Labor Day, both adapted for film. Her novel, Count the Ways, was recently awarded the Grand Prix Literaire in France. Every winter for over two decades, Maynard has led the Lake Atitlan Memoir workshop, Write by the Lake, in Guatemala. She has her own Wikipedia page at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joyce_Maynard

Moorewood Family Rules
HelenKay Dimon
Avon Books
c/o HarperCollins Publishers
www.harpercollins.com
9780063297142, $30.00, HC, 384pp

https://www.amazon.com/Moorewood-Family-Rules-HelenKay-Dimon/dp/0063297140

Synopsis: One day a con man met an heiress, wooed her, married her, had two kids... and kept on conning. Jillian Moorewood is the oldest child from that meet-cute-gone-wrong marriage. The stable one. The sensible and dependable one. The one who protects and fixes. The one who went to prison to save their sorry butts. Now, thirty-nine months later, she's out and she's more than a little pissed.

Finally home she finds the scheming clan in full family fleecing mode. They all claim they didn't really agree to Jillian's previous go-legit-or-else ultimatum before she went away. They viewed it as a "suggestion" then ignored it. So, business as usual. But Jillian is done with the lies and fakery. She demands the whole messed-up crew clean up its act, and this time she's not kidding because she has the leverage to make it happen.

Problem is, her life is in shambles, but with the help of a great aunt (crooked but loveable), a bodyguard (who is a nice surprise after three years in prison), and a few allies (all working undercover), Jillian starts to put her life back together. She kicks out a few mooching relatives living under her roof, sets limits on everyone's access to the money, ducks from their various attacks, and sees if that bodyguard is maybe interested in sticking around for a while. For the first time, she's Jillian Moorewood, her own woman, and she's ready to figure out who she is.

Critique: A fun read from first page to last, "Moorewood Family Rules" by HelenKay Dimon is impressively original, brilliantly scripted, laced through with humorous idiosyncracies, and a truly memorable novel that will have a special appeal to readers with an interest in contemporary romantic comedy with a kick! While especially and unreservedly recommended community library Contemporary Women's Fiction & Romance collections, it should be noted for personal reading lists that "Moorewood Family Rules" is also readily available in a paperback edition (9780063240520, $18.99), in a digital book format (Kindle, $11.99), and as a complete and unabridged audio book (Blackstone Audio, 9798212217392, $41.99, CD).

Editorial Note: HelenKay Dimon (www.helenkaydimon.com) is a former divorce lawyer with a dual writing personality. Her work has been optioned for television and featured in numerous venues, including The New York Times, The New York Post, Cosmopolitan, The Washington Post, The Toronto Star, Popsugar, Goodreads, The Skimm, and Huffington Post. In addition to writing thrillers as Darby Kane, she is now writing stories centered on family hijinks with a bit of suspense and humor.

The Sound of Rabbits
Janice Deal
Regal House Publishing
https://regalhousepublishing.com
9781646033461, $18.95, PB, 252pp

https://www.amazon.com/Sound-Rabbits-Janice-Deal/dp/1646033469

Synopsis: With the publication of "The Sound of Rabbits", novelist Janice Deal tells the story of Ruby, a bright woman with a love of music who thought that leaving the small town where she grew up would ensure her happiness. But her life in Chicago is not going the way she'd planned.

At 41, she's drifted away from music, and a long-term relationship with a boyfriend has ended badly. Everything changes with one phone call from her sister, Val, who cares for their mother, Barbara, in the hardscrabble Midwestern town where Ruby grew up. Ruby returns to confront some harsh truths about her family and herself as she tries to find meaning in her mother's battle with Parkinson's disease.

Critique: The narrative driven storytelling style employed by Janice Deal in her "The Sound of Rabbits", (and all the more impressive considering that it is her debut as a novelist) relies on presenting different points of view in order to explore themes of change and death, and considers the role that the past (and the acceptance of that past) can play in our current and future happiness. Original, entertaining, thoughtful and thought-provoking, "The Sound of Rabbits" is an impressive work of literary fiction and highly recommended for community, college, and university library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections. Also available for personal reading lists in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99), "The Sound of Rabbits" will have a special appeal for anyone with an interest in stories of Family Life and Small Towns.

Editorial Note: Janice Deal (https://www.janicedeal.com/bio.html) is the author of the short story collection The Decline of Pigeons, a finalist in the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction; and Strange Attractors, a cycle of linked stories. Her stories have won the Moth Short Story Prize and Cagibi Macaron Prize for fiction, and have appeared in publications including Fiction, Harvard Review Online, The Sun, Emrys Journal, Ontario Review, and Zone 3.

Where Waters Meet
Zhang Ling
Amazon Crossing
Brilliance Audio
https://www.brilliancepublishing.com
9781662510380, $28.99, HC, 284pp

https://www.amazon.com/Where-Waters-Meet-Zhang-Ling/dp/1662510381

Synopsis: There was rarely a time when Phoenix Yuan-Whyller's mother, Rain, didn't live with her. Even when Phoenix got married, Rain, who followed her from China to Toronto, came to share Phoenix's life. Now at the age of eighty-three, Rain's unexpected death ushers in a heartrending separation.

Struggling with the loss, Phoenix comes across her mother's suitcase -- a memory box Rain had brought from home. Inside, Phoenix finds two old photographs and a decorative bottle holding a crystallized powder. Her auntie Mei tells her these missing pieces of her mother's early life can only be explained when they meet, and so, clutching her mother's ashes, Phoenix boards a plane for China. What at first seems like a daughter's quest to uncover a mother's secrets becomes a startling journey of self-discovery.

Told across decades and continents, Zhang Ling's exquisite novel is a tale of extraordinary courage and survival. It illuminates the resilience of humanity, the brutalities of life, the secrets we keep and those we share, and the driving forces it takes to survive.

Critique: All the more impressive when considering that "Where Waters Meet" is Chinese author Zhang Ling's first novel written in English. With a special appeal to readers with an interest in women's fiction and generational family novels, "Where Waters Meet" is an elegant, eloquent, original, entertaining, thought-provoking, and narrative driven novel that is especially and unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library Literary Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "Where Waters Meet" is also available in a paperback edition (9781662509001, $16.99), in a digital book format (Kindle, $4.99), and as a complete an unabridged audio book (Brilliance Audio, 9781978699687, $29.99, MP3-CD).

Editorial Note: Zhang Ling (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhang_Ling_(author)) is the author of nine novels and numerous collections of novellas and short stories, including A Single Swallow, translated by Shelly Bryant; Gold Mountain Blues; and Aftershock, which was adapted into China's first IMAX movie with unprecedented box-office success. Born in China, she moved to Canada in 1986 and, in the mid-1990s, began to write and publish fiction in Chinese while working as a clinical audiologist. Since then, she has won the Chinese Media Literature Award for Author of the Year, the Grand Prize of Overseas Chinese Literary Award, and China Times's Open Book Award.

One More Day
Diane Chiddister
https://dianechiddister.com
Columbus Press
http://columbuspressbooks.com
9781633375529, $14.99, PB, 303pp

https://www.amazon.com/One-More-Day-Diane-Chiddister/dp/1633375528

Synopsis: author Diane Chiddister's new novel, "One More Day", showcases the surprising depth and complexity of the Grace Woods Care Center, where the facility itself is small, yet the emotional world is expansive. While grieving and loss play a part in this world, so do love, joy, and compassion.

"One More Day" is told in four voices: Thomas, a retired anthropologist who approaches aging with curiosity; Lillian, a woman with dementia trying to find her way home; Sally, a compassionate caregiver blindsided by love; and Beth, the center director, who strives to maintain quality care through difficult changes.

Critique: Deftly crafted, impressively original, and fully entertaining, "One More Day" is an enriched experience for the reader and a celebration of novelist Diane Chiddister's genuine flair for creating distinctively memorable characters along with a riveting, narrative driven, storytelling style. While also available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99) for readers with an interest in Women and Family Life fiction, "One More Day" is especially and unreservedly recommended for community library Contemporary Literary Fiction collections.

Editorial Note: Diane Chiddister (https://dianechiddister.com) is a journalist and former editor of the Yellow Springs News in Yellow Springs, Ohio. She's also a short story writer and 1981 MFA graduate of the University of Iowa Writer's Workshop, where she was a Teaching-Writing Fellow.

Silence
Engin Akyurek, author
Doina L. Kovalik & Atiye Erden, translators
Flexible Press
https://www.flexiblepub.com
9798986245942, $18.00, PB, 177pp

https://www.amazon.com/Silence-Engin-Aky%C3%BCrek/dp/B0BTWP8W9N

Synopsis: "Silence" is a compendium of short stories by Engin Akyurek that take us to Turkey and a time when people got to know people by looking in their eyes, to touch people by talking to them, and to understand each other by listening. The times when the kids were still kids, when they started a ball game as soon as they found an empty field, when neighbors stopped by uninvited, holidays were celebrated all together, the happiness and the sorrow shared by all.

These stories by Akyurek brings the reader both the richness of Turkish day-to-day life but also the universal shared between all cultures -- the need for community, connection, and of love.

Critique: The twenty-one short stories by Engin Akyurek comprising "Silence" range from The Cherry Tree, to The Child in Me, to Memories in the Air. Original, memorable, deftly crafted, and impressively translated into English by the team of Doina L. Kovalik and Atiye Erden, as a short story anthology "Silence" is singularly and unreservedly recommended for community, college, and university library Contemporary Literary Fiction and Cultural Heritage Fiction collections. It should be noted for personal reading lists that "Silence" is also readily available in a digital book format (Kindle, $9.99).

Editorial Note: Engin Akyurek (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Engin_Aky%C3%BCrek) is a Turkish actor, screenwriter and author. Akyurek began his acting career in the year 2004. Staring in many acclaimed series and movies, and having received no official schooling for acting, stage or screen, Akyurek is considered as one of Turkey's most successful and highest paid actors. Akyurek.

Heaven & Earth
Joshua Senter
www.joshuasenter.com
Roubidoux Press
9781737585626, $34.99 Hardcover/$12.99 ebook

https://amzn.to/3Xf84y4

Ruth and her pastor husband have moved mountains to build a megachurch empire, but in Heaven & Earth, the mountain has just erupted in a big way. This results in a scandal that leads to their exile from their own creation and community as they flee into the backwoods milieu of a small Missouri farm.

Her husband's betrayal has not only shaken the foundations of their church and belief, but causes Ruth to veer from her own preset course in life as a beloved pastor's wife, leading her to question virtually everything she's believed about her world. Well known for her inner wisdom and ability to save others, Ruth must now train her light on a mission that is perhaps impossible - saving her family and herself. The cost of that venture may be greater than the alternatives of divorce or remaining married.

Joshua Senter presents a multifaceted story that questions a diverse set of notions about how the world operates, from opinions about homosexuality and marriage to a man who proves to be very different than the facade she's accepted all these years.

One of the strengths of this novel lies in Ruth's revelations about the illusions and truths in her entire life, which are portrayed in such evocative language that readers are drawn to her dilemma. Ruth's process of growth mirrors many paths in life which create set courses and then are diverted by circumstances which introduce different realities and events to challenge seemingly-solid foundations.

As she and her family attempt to forge a new life and face difficult decisions that change everything they've believed in, Ruth discovers that even she can continue moving onward and upward, even though everything she knew to be solid truth is shaken by her revelations about her world. Heaven & Earth is outstanding in its evocative probe of this process. It's a novel highly recommended not just for libraries and individuals seeking stories of spiritual and psychological growth, but for book clubs examining women's lives and issues, religious lives and mindsets, and the heart of family changes that reach out to touch all with the promise of change and transformation.

When Oceans Rise
Robin Alvarez
www.robinalvarez.com
Creative James Media
https://creativejamesmedia.com
9781956183160, $14.99 Paper/$4.99 Kindle

https://www.amazon.com/When-Oceans-Rise-Robin-Alvarez/dp/1956183167

Trigger warning: When Oceans Rise is a novel steeped in revelations about manipulation, emotional abuse, and the processes of identification and recovery which prompt seventeen-year-old Malaya to reconsider her life when she becomes submerged in a toxic relationship.

Readers who would pursue her experiences will find much growth and realizations within her story that also embrace a touch of the supernatural as she comes to realize that she is cursed by a family legacy of women falling for the wrong man, with death as the outcome and cost of their love.

Malaya becomes convinced that her choices and man are quite different. The ways in which she becomes isolated and is manipulated by her dream man are subtle, at first, but work their dreadful magic to land her in a situation which would careens towards a similar fate. Is this inevitable, or will Malaya be the one to break the curse and the trend?

Robin Alvarez crafts a particularly thought-provoking, eye-opening scenario of heritage, legacy, abuse, and the processes by which even a determined, savvy young woman becomes ensnared in the same emotional traps as women before her. Alvarez then introduces an extraordinary opportunity for Malaya to travel back in time and make different choices. But, will they lead to different scenarios, or move full circle to reinforce the idea that such patterns are inevitably repeated?

When Oceans Rise is a powerful survey that introduces a sea witch's influences, but presents many thought-provoking moments about pivot points, decision-making, and repetitive patterns in life that defy change. As Malaya contrasts old and new life options, she makes the kinds of revised choices that seemingly send her on a healthier alternative road. Or, do they?

Individual readers will find much food for thought within her story, but ideally book clubs consisting of women's literature readers (especially young adults moving into new adult status) and psychological groups interested in the mechanics of abuse, repression, and breaking family patterns will find much discussion fodder in When Oceans Rise. This makes it a highly recommended novel that operates on more than one level.

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