by Amy Jo Burns
First published 2020
Wren Bird lives in a remote mountain cabin with her parents, cut off from the nearest West Virginia mining town. She has no contact with the outside world except through her mother's closest friend. Each Sunday, Wren watches her father preach at an old gas station, handling venomous snakes and claiming his damaged white eye proves God speaks through him. This eye gives him power over his followers and control over Wren and her mother. When her father performs what seems like a miracle, everything goes wrong. The tragedy forces Wren to question the stories she's been told about her father's divine calling. She begins digging into her mother's past and the deep friendship that has sustained both women. As Wren uncovers family secrets, she realizes she can choose a different path than the one her father has planned for her.
Genres: fiction, literary-fiction, contemporary, family-drama
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, unreliable-narrator
Setting: West Virginia
Period: Contemporary
272 pages · Hardcover · Riverhead Books
Content warnings: abuse, child-abuse, domestic-violence