Showing results for "How Not to Drown" in Genre Fiction

Cara Romero thought she would work at the factory of little lamps for the rest of her life. But, in her mid-50s, she loses her job in the Great Recession, she is forced back into the job market for the first time in decades. Set up with a job counselor, Cara instead begins to narrate the story of her life. Over the course of twelve sessions, Cara recounts her tempestuous love affairs, her biting and loving relationships with her neighbor Lulu and her sister Angela, her struggles with debt, gentrification and loss, and what really happened between her and her estranged son, Fernando.

Amelia MacQueen has lost her favorite son, Gavin, to a suspicious drowning, and she’s been awarded temporary custody of her 12-year-old daughter, Heaven, who she reluctantly takes in. The daughter of drug addicts, who has long been left to her own devices, Heaven does not appreciate her grandmother’s constant critical ministrations, and the pair quickly butt heads. She instead bonds with Uncle Daniel, Amelia's agoraphobic older son. Through the wall between their rooms, Daniel spins Celtic tales for Heaven from the Isle of Skye, where the family's ancestors lived.