A sensitive Southern woman takes decades to learn from her past and make a genuine family connection in this emotionally laden first novel. Leavening her narrative with touches of mysticism, Hermes explores the fragile aspect of love and how the neurotic fear of losing it can have disastrous consequences. [...] Hermes displays courage in her emotional explorations, revealing her characters' complex motives in extensive dialogue and unobtrusive third-person prose, then leading them to discover for themselves that in order to love or be loved, they must allow themselves to become vulnerable. Her grasp of domestic joy and sadness, and her evocation of life in a small Southern town, add texture to this uplifting weeper. --Publishers Weekly
