When Your Mother Doesn't: A Novel

Nearly three decades of secrets lie between Lola Ashby and the two daughters she reluctantly raised. So when the eldest, Frankie, agrees to visit her ailing mother, who abandoned the girls when they were in high school, Frankie doesn’t hold out much hope for a meaningful connection. But when her younger sister Callie announces that she’s moving to Los Angeles from the East Coast, Frankie badgers her sister into meeting up for an ill-formed family reunion—and to dilute any awkwardness with Lola. It’s a recipe for disaster the sisters know all too well. With Lola doing everything she can to keep them at arm’s length, any hope for reconciliation may just shrivel up and blow away—unless they can find a way to forgive themselves, and one another.

Told from the perspectives of three different women—each facing her own hope and hardship—this tender, compelling narrative explores the kind of people we become when those who should love us most let us down, and what, if anything, we can do to heal the wounds of the past.