In October 1979, six years after suffering the loss of Beth, her dear friend and sister-in-law, to enemy mortar fire near the village of Quảng Ngãi, Vietnam, Kat Hunter began to question everything about her traditional life. With a backdrop of the 1970s feminist movement and the final years of the Vietnam War, Kat decides the only way she can understand her unresolved grief and discover who she is meant to be is to do the unthinkable, the unforgivable. After she slips away from her home in Lexington, Kentucky, her husband, and three young daughters in the middle of the night, Kat boards a Greyhound bus with no specific destination in mind. On the bus, she meets Molly, a young woman who reminds her of Beth. With nowhere else to go, Kat follows Molly and Molly’s boyfriend, Jake, to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Once there, Kat guards the secret that she is married and has abandoned her children to the care of her husband. Kat’s journey of self-discovery ultimately leads her down an unexpected path.
About the Author
Sherry Robinson, an award-winning American fiction writer, is the author of two previous novels, Blessed (2019) and My Secrets Cry Aloud (2009), the latter of which will be reissued in 2022 under the new title Echo Her Lovely Bones. She holds a PhD in English from the University of Kentucky and an MA and MFA from Eastern Kentucky University. Robinson is a native of Lexington, Kentucky. She recently retired as vice provost and professor of English at Eastern Kentucky University, where she spent thirteen years specializing in American literature before moving into administrative positions.