Prospice

Struggling to move on with her life after she loses her husband in World War II, Caroline Hunt brings her two daughters back to her childhood home in Salem, Massachusetts. Caroline's chance meeting with her college sweetheart leads to a complex union that weaves two families together, bringing both great joy and heartrending sorrow. At the center of this compelling drama is the simmering, uncontainable attraction felt by step-siblings Dinah and Tru.

A profoundly stirring story of young people on the brink of adulthood and the stark realities of family life-including harrowing grief and the consequences of long-buried secrets-Prospice is rich with psychological detail and unforgettably delineated characters. In elegant prose and pitch-perfect period detail, Karen Kelly draws us deep inside the lives of her characters, offering poignant humor along with page-turning suspense that will captivate readers to the very last, revealing page.

Prospice is Latin for "look ahead," an apt designation for this beautifully wrought debut sure to be embraced by all who love The Memory Keeper's Daughter or the novels of Julia Glass and Ann Patchett. Evocatively portraying several generations of vividly drawn women, it is the story of a family that learns, through sorrow and loss, to find happiness and the strength to look ahead.