"With stellar storytelling skills, Tina Shelton reminds us that while love isn't always enough to erase the hurts,
it's the only way to survive them. A powerful read!" --Julie Cantrell, New York Times & USA Today best-selling
"With stellar storytelling skills, Tina Shelton reminds us that while love isn't always enough to erase the hurts,
it's 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 can't face the things she's 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 she's made, and the secrets eating her alive.
Now Gracey and her sisters are alone on Chicago's South Side with nothing but their home and belongings.
They're doing everything they can to stay together, but young teens aren't meant to parent themselves. Their
close-knit Black community gathers around them to keep them fed and clothed with the utilities on, but that's
not enough to fix the damage of abandonment.
Hundreds of miles away, Charlotte is struggling to keep her own head above water. She's made a close friend
who talks to her about God in a way Charlotte's never heard before. But when her demons catch up to her, the
shaky peace she tried to build shatters. Even if she's 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 Charlotte's 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, Shelton's 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 don't
know why." --Dr. Stephen G. Ray Jr., former president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion
