This week we’re serving up some deep-dish reads – emotional and gripping. Our Books in Bloom features two September releases you should consider for your fall reading pile. They both fall in line with our tribute to mothers this month.
The Promised World by Lisa Tucker
From the publisher:
Lisa Tucker captures the hidden heart of the modern family. In her widely acclaimed novels, she has established her unique gift for depicting the bewildering nature of love, the poignant quest to belong, and the deep desire for a place to call home.
Now from the bestselling author of The Cure for Modern Life and Once Upon a Day comes a riveting story of suspense about a literature professor whose carefully constructed life is shattered after the death of her twin brother and the unraveling of the secret world they shared.
On a March afternoon, while Lila Cole is working in her quiet office, her twin brother Billy points an unloaded rifle out of a hotel window, closing down a city block. “Suicide by police” was obviously Billy’s intended result, but the aftermath of his death brings shock after shock for Lila when she discovers that her brilliant but troubled twin — the person she revered and was closer to than anyone in the world — was not only estranged from his wife, but also charged with endangering the life of his middle child and namesake, eight-year-old William.
As Lila struggles to figure out what was truth and what was fiction in her brother’s complicated past, her job, her marriage, and even her sanity will be put at risk. And when the hidden meaning behind Billy’s stories comes to light, she will have to act before Billy’s children are destroyed by the same heartbreaking reality that shattered her protector and twin more than twenty years ago.
A love song to the redemptive power ofbooks and stories, The Promised World is a mesmerizing tale of intimacy, betrayal, and lost innocence that will haunt readers long after they have turned the final page.
About the Author
Lisa Tucker is the author of The Song Reader and Shout Down the Moon; she has also published short work in Seventeen, Pages, and The Oxford American. She has advanced degrees in English and math, and has taught creative writing at the Taos Conference and UCLA. Lisa lives in Pennsylvania and New Mexico with her husband and son. Visit her website at www.lisatucker.com.
The Water Giver; the Story of a Mother, A Son, and Their Second Chance by Joan Ryan
From the publisher:
BOTH A MEDICAL DRAMA AND MEDITATION ON MOTHERHOOD, THE WATER GIVER IS JOAN RYAN’S GRIPPING ACCOUNT OF HER SON’S NEAR-FATAL ACCIDENT.
WHEN SHE FIRST CALLED TO THE HOSPITAL, Joan Ryan thinks it means only a few stitches and a wasted afternoon. Instead she spends months rather than hours with her son in the hospital and in rehab, watching him fight to survive a traumatic brain injury. Joan retraces the tumultuous, complicated relationship that delivers mother and son to this moment when, through his brush with death and his painful rehabilitation, they are challenged to redefine who they are and what they mean to each other.
Never easy to parent, her son had spent most of his sixteen years lurching from one setback to the next, struggling to overcome learning disabilities and ADHD. Joan’s grim determination to solve the puzzle of his odd and often defiant behavior left her confounded and exasperated. She became so controlling and judgmental, so focused on trying to fix him, that she became more his relentless reformer than his loving mother.
When her son wakes from his coma, Joan gets a second chance at motherhood. She rejoices at his first word, his first step, his first spoon of food, his first attempt to write. She gets to be his mother all over again and for the first time recognizes what an amazing, heroic young man he is. The Water Giver is the universal story of a mother coming to terms with her limitations and learning that the best way to help her child is simply to love him.
You can also read excerpts of both novels on Amazon.