Looking For Me is the new Novel by Beth Hoffman. It is the follow up to her bestseller Saving Cee Cee Honeycutt. I was completely smitten with Cee Cee. Many of the characters sprinkled throughout this phenomenal debut novel, still live in my heart.
Having said that, Looking For Me is better. It’s also different. It drills down deep into a multi-layered, complex story, one that unfolds in non-linear layers, the way our dreams sit alongside our memories, but each chapter places you perfectly along the arc of the tale being told.
Looking For Me is the story of a broken family, each one carrying a scar. At the center of the story is a brother and sister, Teddi and Josh. Teddi’s passion is antiques. She sees the beauty in things that are broken, and forgotten. This drives the way she sees the world. Especially, her brother Josh.
Josh holds a connection and communion with nature and animals that no one can explain. At one point, Teddi asks him about it and he calls it an “Awakening.” Josh is between the worlds, the one that everyone else sees and the world only he can see. He lives in the silence between the whispers.
From the moment Josh was first brought home from the hospital, Teddi’s saw him as a gift. That never changed. She treasured him and always sought to protect him. However, like everyone else she didn’t fully understand him, even though she was in awe of him.
The story hinges on one day. Thanksgiving. It began with a fallen feather, and a message. It ends with violence, and a family that would never return to the innocence of that morning. At the end of that night’s events, Josh disappears into the woods and never returns.
Teddi opens her own shop, and as she repairs the gouges in her furniture she struggles to fill the gouge in her heart by Josh’s disappearance.
Looking For Me is a book of journeys. In its depth, it also carries great shimmer. It is populated with quirky southern inhabitants that takes the tension off the line. My personal favorite is Roxy, a tractor riding chicken.
If you loved Cee Cee, you will love this. Just expect more.
