A beautifully written, thoroughly engaging novel. Deborah Reed s prose is lyrical, elegant, and vivid she is a standout among new American novelists. Jessica Anya Blau, author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and Drinking Closer to Home
Famed alt-country artist Annie Walsh has more than enough reason to sing her version of the blues, including a broken heart, a stalled career, and a troubled family. Annie seeks refuge from an upended love affair with her producer, Owen Pettybone, by sequestering herself at home with her old dog Detour, surrounded by a lush Florida tangelo grove. Soon, however, this quiet, small-town existence far from recording studios, ardent fans, and affairs of the heart comes crashing down around her. A violent murder connected to her brother Calder threatens to tear her family apart and forces Annie to shore up her loyalties and uproot profound disappointments from her distant past. Like a fine and forlorn love ballad, the gifted, conflicted Annie lulls the reader into a journey through love and loss that mines the mysterious, and, at times, paradoxical rhythms of the human heart.
Deborah Reed has written here a novel peopled with real, flesh-and-bone characters men and women both as good and delightfully flawed as our best friends, our spouses, ourselves. And the icing on this cake is Reed s lucid, lovely prose. Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum, author of This Life She s Chosen and Swimming with StrangersDeborah Reed comes from a long line of storytellers and musicians and finds creative inspiration in the composition of alt-country, folk, and homespun goods. She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest, where she also writes suspense fiction under the name of Audrey Braun.
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