September 2010

Tillie Harris has just moved to a new town where she knows no one. Her husband is in Europe on a business trip that he wants to get behind him before their baby is born; she is due the following month. Thus when her labor pains begin, this plan is foiled, and she has only one person to reach out and call --- her father from whom she has been estranged. At this very vulnerable time, Tillie is forced to dredge up a number of memories that she has been trying to push away since she was a young girl --- about the year her mother disappeared.
 

While the story opens and closes with Tillie as an adult, her eight-year-old voice will be the one you will remember most. Her want and need to make her life normal --- and the utterly powerful love of Tillie for her mom --- is always there, pushing her to see a better life than what is real. Over and over again, she forgives and tries to make things right. Nothing in this book unfolds quite the way you would predict --- but what you read will haunt you. And it will be the kind of book you want to talk about once it’s done.

This is one of the strongest debut novels that I have read. As I was reading, Tillie Harris reminded me of the young girl in ME AND EMMA, another book that I loved a few years ago, where there again was a plucky girl at the heart of the story. Don’t miss this brilliant paperback original that people are sure to be talking about.