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Published Apr 2010
352 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
During the summer of 1968, Shenandoah Carmody's mother disappeared. Her twin sister, Woody, stopped speaking, and her once-loving father slipped into a mean drunkenness unbefitting a superior court judge. Since then, Shenny - named for the Shenandoah valley - has struggled to hold her world together, taking care of herself and her sister the best she can. Shenny feels certain that Woody knows something about the night their mother vanished, but her attempts to communicate with her mute twin leave her as confused as their father's efforts to confine the girls to the family's renowned virginia estate.
As the first anniversary of their mother's disappearance nears, her father's threat to send Woody away and his hints at an impending remarriage spur a desperate Shenny to find her mother before it's too late. She is ultimately swept up in a series of heartbreaking events that force her to come to terms with the painful truth about herself and her family.
Told with the wisdom, sensitivity, and humor for which Lesley Kagen has become known, Tomorrow River is a stellar hardcover debut.
"Starred Review. [Kagen] not only delivers a spellbinding story but also takes a deep look into the mores, values, and shams of a small Southern community in an era of change." - Publishers Weekly
"Although Kagen makes references to cultural touchstones like Vietnam and the moon landing, her version of 1969 Virginia veers from anachronistically innocent to anachronistically backward." - Kirkus Reviews
"... the charming, genuine voice of Shenny, whose country-Southern dialect is beautifully rendered with rhythmic cadences, is impossible to resist...Overall, it's the tender bond between the twins that redeems the world from the cruelty around them and keeps you rooting for them right up until the end." - Milwaukee Magazine
"Shenandoah leaps off the page in vivid color: sparky, resourceful, trying to cope...and doing it with the matter-of-fact, heartbreaking courage that kids learn when there's no other choice. This book is packed with warmth, wit, intelligence, images savory enough to taste-and deep dark places that are all the more terrible for being surrounded by so much brightness."
- Tana French, New York Times bestselling author of In the Woods and The Likeness
This information about Tomorrow River was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Lesley Kagen is an actress, voice-over talent, and restaurateur. The author of the national bestselling paperbacks Whistling in the Dark and Land of a Hundred Wonders, she lives in Cederburg, Wisconsin.
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