About the BookOn her twenty-first birthday, Maggie Owen receives an unusual birthday gift: a house. That same day, the house’s owner, her aunt, dies. For three years, Maggie has been fleeing her childhood demons: the deaths of her parents, estrangement from her terminally-ill aunt, and a betrayal by her best friend. But now her career on the road, following natural disasters in temporary insurance claims offices, ends abruptly as Maggie returns home to face her past. But why does the house hold a mysterious spell over her? Why does she have the persistent feeling that her aunt is haunting her? Why did her aunt lie to her about the circumstances of her parents’ deaths? Who is the ghost child that may be hanging around the house? And what’s with the guy next door who seems so hostile toward her? FOLLOWING DISASTERS is tightly woven ghost story that raises questions about legacies and their influence on our choices.
My Review
The disasters in this book are mostly of the heart. The plot follows the underlying tension that builds between introverts and extroverts, and the fallout that results because of it. On the whole, the book presents a study in contradictions since neither group ends up the clear-cut winner in the grand scheme of things. The introverted remain paralyzed, wallowing in their mistakes and regrets, while the more extroverted characters tend to lead unsatisfying double lives, burying their problems beneath the surface, pretending they don't exist, only to discover that they do.
The bottom line is that no one gets through life unscathed. Yet does the pattern of jealousy and betrayal need to continue down through generations of a family? Can the cycle of following disaster after disaster ever be broken?
The book offers a glimmer of hope that with knowledge comes power. For Maggie, the main character, her parents are dead, but not for the reasons she was led to believe. She comes to the painful revelation that she's been living with a false set of facts. When she finally finds out the truth about what happened, it completely changes the outlook of her life.
Now she doesn't view herself as such a screw-up. She comes to the realization that there's no set standard she has to live up to anymore. When it comes to living her life, she's the one making the rules in defining what success means to her and what constitutes her own personal happiness.
It's an affirming finish to a book that works through two generations of a family's pain, covering everything from health problems to untimely loss to infidelity. In the end, the silence is broken. Secrets are revealed, and true healing can finally begin.
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Following Disasters can be purchased at:
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Prices/Formats: $9.99 ebook, $16.00 paperback
Genre: Gothic, Horror, Ghosts
Pages: 234
Release: October 1, 2016
Publisher: Outpost19
ISBN: 9781944853037
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About the AuthorFollowing Disasters is Nancy McCabe's first novel. She has also published four books of creative nonfiction, including Meeting Sophie: A Memoir or Adoption; Crossing the Blue Willow Bridge: A Journey to My Daughter's Birthplace in China; and From Little Houses to Little Women: Revisiting a Literary Childhood. She is a regular blogger for Ploughshares and has published work in Newsweek, Writers' Digest, Prairie Schooner, Gulf Coast, Fourth Genre, and other magazines and anthologies. Her work has received a Pushcart and six times made notable lists in Houghton Mifflin Best American anthologies.
Links to connect with Nancy:
Web Site
YouTube
Goodreads
Blog
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Thanks for the review! :)
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