With stellar storytelling skills Tina Shelton reminds us that while love isnt always enough to erase the hurts its the only way to survive them. A powerful read! --Julie Cantrell New York Times & USA Today best-selling author of Perennials When her husband dies Charlotte cant face the things shes done that could tear her family apart. So she drops a goodbye letter in the cookie jar and flees south to escape everything--her life her three daughters the mistakes shes made and the secrets eating her alive. Now Gracey and her sisters are alone on Chicagos South Side with nothing but their home and belongings. Theyre doing everything they can to stay together but young teens arent meant to parent themselves. Their close-knit Black community gathers around them to keep them fed and clothed with the utilities on but thats not enough to fix the damage of abandonment. Hundreds of miles away Charlotte is struggling to keep her own head above water. Shes made a close friend who talks to her about God in a way Charlottes never heard before. But when her demons catch up to her the shaky peace she tried to build shatters. Even if shes able to find the courage to embrace motherhood again will it be enough to save the family she left behind? Compelling raw vulnerable and set firmly in reality Gracey and Charlottes story will grip readers from first page to last. Fans of Robin W. Pearson Katie Powner and Angela Jackson-Brown will be moved by this redemptive hopeful story about what it means to be a family. --Susie Finkbeiner author of The All-American and The Nature of Small Birds Deeply evocative of The Women of Brewster Place Sheltons storytelling masterfully draws us into the landscapes of place and heart demonstrating that the thread of love is what finally saves us even if we dont know why. --Dr. Stephen G. Ray Jr. former president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion
