Embers

By Barbara Cuyler

Sam and her two half-sisters must satisfy the stipulations of their mother's will by writing the book she'd begun. A traumatic event during her adolescence taught Sam to run from challenges, but she can't run from this one. For a while working with her sisters proves rewarding, but memories of her adolescence, which Sam has buried under mounds of food and denial, come to the surface with devastating results, not just for her relationship with her sisters but with her husband and children as well. Nadine, the most vocal in her resentment of their mother and the will's stipulations, has refused to have anything to do with Sam for over twenty years because she blames her older sister for their mother's divorce from Nadine's father. Now she is forced to work with this sister, whom she views as an intolerant prude, while memories of her mom's desertion threaten her relationship with the man she loves but is afraid to stay with. Olivia, the youngest half-sister, discovers only after her mother's death that she has siblings. She views collaborating on the book as a way to get to know her sisters as well as learn all she can from them about their mother, who had been on the periphery of the majority of Olivia's life. What she encounters, however, are two women embittered by the past, who long ago wrote their mother out of their lives. Intertwined with the story of Sam, Nadine, and Olivia are excerpts from two other stories. The first is the one the sisters are writing, involving a young woman named Ember, the daughter of the main character in their mother's series of fantasy romances. The other is the first book their mother wrote. Excerpts from the first mirror issues and emotions in the sisters' lives, while those from the second give clues concerning their mother's past, which caused each of her daughters to feel either abandoned or betrayed.As the women near the end of their writing project, they discover their mother's decades-old secret, which makes them reevaluate their perceptions of her. The startling revelation also makes them look upon themselves and their other relationships in entirely new ways. By the novel's end each woman discovers that she carries inside herself an ember of her mother's spirit, and that it's up to her to determine what she'll do with it.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1984962914
• ISBN13: 9781984962911
• Release Date: February 2018
• Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 428 Pages
• Weight: 1.59 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.0" x 1.0" x 6.0"