Billie Starr's Book of Sorries
A Novel
-
-
3.0 • 1 Rating
-
-
- $11.99
-
- $11.99
Publisher Description
“Funny yet bitingly realistic look at small-town life…A grim literary mystery and a hopeful family story, this genre-blending novel manages to be both charming and heartbreaking.” —Kirkus
“An enthralling suspense thriller…Exquisite prose matches deep characterization. Kennedy deserves to win an Edgar.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
Sometimes, a woman has to rescue herself.
Jenny Newberg, Queen of Bad Decisions, is about to make another one. In a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business, down-on-her-luck single mother Jenny is on a first-name basis with the debt collector at the bank, who is moving toward foreclosure. She is constantly apologizing to her precocious young daughter, Billie Starr, who is filling a book with her mother’s sorries, and it seems to Jenny that no apology will ever be enough.
Then a pair of strangers in black suits offers her a hefty check to seduce someone known as the Candidate. Finally, something will go her way.
But nothing ever goes as Jenny plans, and she is swept into the Candidate’s orbit. Surrounded by a wide universe of new ideas, she realizes how constrained her life has been by the expectations of everyone around her, and she starts to see how much more she might be capable of. And when her world is rocked to its core and Billie Starr may be in danger, Jenny is forced to do what she once thought impossible: trust in herself and her own power to make things right.
Shimmering with rage and sparkling with subtle humor, Billie Starr's Book of Sorries showcases Edgar Award-nominee Deborah E. Kennedy's singular voice and shines a light on the town of Benson, Indiana, where lakes, grudges, and family rifts run deep – but so does a mother’s love.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Edgar finalist Kennedy follows her debut, Tornado Weather, with an enthralling suspense thriller. Unmarried 28-year-old Jenny Newberg, who lives in Benson, Ind., a small town where "you might meet yourself on the street, coming and going," is always apologizing for everything. Meanwhile, her precocious eight-year-old daughter, Billie Starr, and a school friend record her "sorries" in a book. They plan to publish it, not for the money but "for the good of the world." Despite all Jenny's apologies, "nothing ever gets better." Until it seems it might, when two men in black suits offer Jenny the chance to get out of debt—if she wears a wire while seducing the Candidate, a married man who's running for high political office. Jenny's rendezvous with the Candidate at a hotel is supposed to change her and Billie's lives. It does. But not exactly the way Jenny hoped. The Candidate endears himself to Jenny, fixing her furnace and being attentive to Billie. Yet something seems off kilter. When Billie goes missing after a Christmas field trip to Chicago, Jenny goes into high gear to find her, and, in the process, herself. The tension rises as the real intent behind the seduction scheme unfolds. Exquisite prose matches deep characterization. Kennedy deserves to win an Edgar with this captivating sophomore effort.
