Happy Release Day!
Congrats Ann
on the release today of
I Will Leave You Never!
I Will Leave You Never by Ann Putnam
Women's Literary Fiction, 336 pages
Published May 9, 2023 by She Writes Press
In the middle of a perilous drought in the Northwest, an arsonist begins setting fires all around. It gives Zoe Penney nightmares about her home—seated right next to tinder-dry woods—rising up in explosions of fire, as well as haunting dreams of a little boy deep in the forest.
Winter brings the longed-for rains but also a cancer diagnosis for Zoe’s husband, Jay, which plunges the family into disbelief and fear. The children lean in close to their parents, can’t stop touching them. As Jay’s treatment begins, nature lets loose with strange and startling encounters, while a shadowy figure hovers about the corners of the house.
First, Zoe’s fear turns to anger: How can I love you if I am to lose you? How can I live in joy when the sky is falling? But she gradually learns that it’s possible to love anything, even terrible things—if you can love them for what they are teaching you.
My thoughts about I Will Leave You Never ~~
(I love to note the first lines of the books I'm reading. First lines can really grab a reader's attention and I love seeing where the author takes the reader after their first lines.)
First lines—"It was the fall before the Millennium, and fears, if they had them, were apocalyptic: computers die, planes crash, banks fail, clocks stop, dogs howl, no water, no food—all distant fears they tabled for the moment as the Northwest drought kept on."
Get your tissues ready for this one! So much emotion. Emotions that comes from so much love, from husband and wife love, and loss, all the way to puppy love. So heartwarming but so sad as well.
I Will Leave You Never grabbed my attention, first of all, because of the cover. The window with the beautiful blue behind it was so captivating. Then I was immediately drawn into the story because of the family and the drama that they found themselves in—a potential arsonists in the neighborhood. As the family and the neighbors go through their lives—the ups and downs—they all learn about love and loss, and the importance of being there for people, even if it's hard.
Ann Putnam is a new-to-me author but I thoroughly enjoyed this story and am excited to see what she writes next. I highly recommend I Will Leave You Never.
I received a copy of I Will Leave You Never from SparkPoint Studio and this is my honest opinion.
Praise for I Will Leave You Never
“Ann Putnam’s glorious I Will Leave You Never is a story of threat and survival and the ties of love that bind us to one another. This novel resonates with the fragile and yet persistent threads of our living, threads that will vibrate inside you for a long time to come.”—Lee Martin, author of Pulitzer finalist The Bright Forever
“Ann Putnam is the kind of extraordinary writer who captures heartbreak and longing with such startling precision and in such beautiful prose that you cannot help but be moved. Zoe and Jay, this family, will live in my memory for years to come.”—Dolen Perkins Valdez, New York Times bestselling author of Wench, Balm and Take My Hand
“Ann Putnam’s I Will Leave You Never is a heartbreaking, gracefully rendered story of the quiet moments between and around the devastating ones and of the beautiful inner workings of the heart and minds battling their way along life’s toughest roads.”—Laurie Frankel, New York Times bestselling author of This is How It Always Is and One Two Three
About the author
Ann Putnam is an internationally known Hemingway scholar who has made more than six trips to Cuba as part of the Ernest Hemingway International Colloquium. Her forthcoming novel, Cuban Quartermoon (June 2022), came, in part, from those trips, as well as a residency at Hedgebrook Writer’s Colony. She has published the memoir Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye (University of Iowa Press) and short stories in Nine by Three: Stories (Collins Press), among others.
She holds a PhD from the University of Washington and has taught creative writing, gender studies, and American literature for many years. She has bred Alaskan Malamutes, which appear prominently in I Will Leave You Never. She currently lives in Gig Harbor, Washington.
Connect with Ann
*********************
0 comments:
Post a Comment
Thanks SO much for leaving me a comment! Every single one means a whole lot to me!