Need to Breathe

by Tara Staley

It’s Groundhog Day, 1975, and Claire Harper survives a botched abortion. All Millie Rose can do at first is stare into the blinding lights of the NICU and hear doctors demanding answers about the burns on Claire’s body. Nurses panic, they cry and shout “she’s bradying down!” because, Lord help them, they’ve never seen anything like this.

Neither has Millie. Although she died in childbirth in 1922, she still has a purpose. Her afterlife is filled with missions lasting anywhere from ten minutes to ten years, and she views her newest assignment as a second chance at motherhood. But she's got to act fast because Claire's lungs are weak, her heart rate keeps tanking, and her pH levels are low. The hospital has never had a 26-weeker pull through.

Millie also tries to counsel Claire’s troubled parents, Mick and Manda, through the emotional fallout. They see marriage as the best “band-aid,” but Claire’s birth always haunts them, to the point Manda becomes a chain-smoking pill-popper who paints her house completely white. Mick becomes a reclusive binge-eater who sleeps in the barn. And Claire comes-of-age wondering about it all-- why she’s so sick, why she has scars on her skin, and what’s the secret her parents are keeping?

Finally, there’s a good reason why Millie nudges Claire to find true love years later with the geeky guy down the street. True, Charlie Vance may build his own batteries and dissect dead animals, but his love for Claire drives his decision to attend medical school so he can take care of her the rest of her life.

NEED TO BREATHE takes an unthinkable crisis and turns it into a gripping story filled with sensitivity, hope, beauty…even humor. From the opening chapter, readers will root for Claire’s chance at happiness, for the Harpers to heal, and for Millie’s reconciliation with her own lost motherhood.

Genres: Paranormal, Family, Fiction

365 pages, Kindle Edition

First published September 26, 2012

About the author

Tara Staley is the author of the upcoming biographical novel CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE, a book launching in ebook and paperback formats on April 23, 2013. CONDITIONS ARE FAVORABLE is the story of a Kitty Hawk woman who falls for one of the love-shy Wright brothers.

Her debut novel, NEED TO BREATHE, was selected as a "LitPick of 2012" on the popular Twitter forum LitChat. It was also named a Top Pick by Underground Book Reviews.

Tara Staley's writing background includes undergraduate and graduate degrees in English and Creative Writing, an RWA award for a past novel, and involvement with the North Carolina Writers Network. She is also a founding member of the online writers' community Backspace. She grew up, lives, and will most likely die in Kernersville, North Carolina (except for a one-year study abroad stint in Australia thanks to a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholarship). She and her husband have two sons.

Reviews

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the first moment you meet them, you find yourself cheering for Claire and Millie Rose. Despite untold hurts and dark secrets, they steadily move toward hope and healing. Tara Staley's lyrical writing style and believable characters, combined with a dash of humor, make "Need to Breathe" a joy to read.

[Carolyn Bass · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good Southern story is set in a place as realistic and vivid as the characters are colorful and meaningful, yet it's the author's voice that gives Southern fiction its distinctive flavor. From this trinity of setting, character and voice comes Tara Staley's debut novel, NEED TO BREATHE.

Where else but a town called Union Cross, North Carolina can a guardian angel named Millie Rose look over the premature infant of a dysfunctional teenage couple? When that premature infant is born with chemical burns across her body, her lungs bursting to breathe, it's Millie Rose who gets beside her and chants, "you need to breathe." After several harrowing minutes of neonatal heroics, breathe she does. The miracle of breath fills her lungs, pumps her heart and haunts her imagination throughout her life.

This 26-week-old preemie is named Claire. Her parents, Mick and Mandy, haven't a clue about their own lives, let alone raising a child. Saddled with the special needs of Claire--medically challenging, intellectually precocious, socially awkward--they sink into the abyss of too much responsibility at too young of an age. This is where Millie Rose works wonders.

For all her Southern wisdom, Millie Rose is a Yankee. She'd dreamed of being a mother herself once, but died in childbirth in 1922. Officially she is a "Corporeal Agent," and though she answers to God, there's very little angelic about her. She has demons of her own that sidetrack her from her mission to watch over Claire and lead her to her future soul mate.

Despite her having a guardian angel guiding her--or attempting to in the case of the headstrong Claire--Claire manages to mess up her life as much as her mother and father had their own. Her father hides away in his muscle car projects, while her interior designer mother is obsessed with finding the perfect shade of white. Each of them are riddled with shame from the secret they won't even discuss among themselves behind the reason for Claire's premature birth.

Characters such as the endearing geriatric twins Gerta and Grace enrich the Southern voice, while the geeky Charlie and the androgynous Big Mac strike a contemporary chord.

The American South has produced some of the world's finest writers and NEED TO BREATHE secures Tara Staley's place among them.

[Janette Skinner · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book with a very unusual story line. It is about the survival and growing up of a girl born prematurely, but the difference in this story is that it is told from the point of view of her spirit guide, or guardian angel, or spirit minder, or whatever label you want to put on her, called Millie. Millie has a hard task protecting Claire as she has numerous dangerous medical conditions and a very difficult dysfunctional family. The family have health problems, money problems and relationship difficulties but the writing is not depressing and Millie’s telling of the story is amusing and warm and loving. It is not overly sentimental, but there is a lot of emotion in this book. The characters are very well detailed, and you feel you know them well, early on in the story, the elderly twin aunts are delightful full of folk wisdom and nonsense and talk of dying.
There are some truly beautiful word pictures that I loved, for example,
‘butterflies make her believe in magic’, and
‘the days are darling and dog eared, folded down so you’ll always remember...’, ‘crepe myrtle wear their flower clusters like hair dos’, lovely images.
Millie has her own problems as she died in childbirth and still misses her surviving daughter, which made me think for the first time of the possibility that even in the afterlife there might still be yearnings and fears and temptations. This aspect of the story is heartbreaking and thought provoking, however, in the next breath Millie can describe a pompous policeman very humorously as ‘walking on ego shells.’
There is a mystery and tension in the story regarding Claire’s beginnings which is played out and revealed at the end and shapes her future.
I did enjoy this book but I do have a few criticisms. The book was very hard to read on Kindle, it did not transfer too well as the format was full of spaces and half lines. Although the pace was good, the book seemed a little long for the overall plot, and perhaps dwelled on Claire’s mother’s depression and strange behaviour a little too much.
Having said all this I feel I could read this book again and enjoy it even more, and have no hesitation in recommending it as a great read.

[Jennifer Kirkwood (Levac) · Rating 5 out of 5]

You can find the full review at Genuine Jenn

I loved this book! I had a hard time putting this book down when I had to. It was one of those books that brings you right into the story and you just need to know what is going to happen. This story was told my Millie Rose who is like a spirit, she is referred to as a pixie, a voice in Claire's mind. The whole book is told by Millie. This is the first book I have read like this and loved it. Millie tried to help Claire from birth, telling her to breathe and she will make it. Claire was born with burns all over her body. She is told they are birth marks. This book was not a happy go lucky kind of book. It was a total emotional roller coaster. There are many dark moments in Claire and Millie's lives that are told and we follow the journey through everything. The author came up with a fabulous story line and had me feeling so many emotions through the book, some where I wanted to cry and other parts where I want to yell at Claire.

I give Need to Breathe by Tara Staley a 5 star rating as this pulled at heart strings, made you happy and sad. The story held me throughout and stayed with me long after reading it. I have also recommended this book to many friends and family members.

[Mike M Jensen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved the concept of this book and its take on a "Guardian Angel". I loved how it stuck to the story of the characters and didn't try to answer some of those questions of the afterlife that would distract from the story.
The characters are real. The writing is superb. and the time spent reading is well rewarding. Highly recommend.

[Mlfarlow · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great story, here. The characters were three dimensional, real people to me. Complex, flawed, but every bit human. I read this in one sitting and especially loved the way it ended. Has lots of issues that would prompt discussion, I think it would be great for a book club.

[Jennifer · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was unfortunately just another book that I just couldn't get into. I have AD/HD when it comes to books. If the book doesn't grab me from the beginning then I don't finish reading it! The story line is great the book just moves too slow for me:)

[Monica · Rating 2 out of 5]

I just couldn't get into it. I really wanted to find out what happened. that is the only reason I kept reading.

[Nimrod · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought this was fantastic--character development, pacing, plot, the setting. Those 2 old 'swin tisters' were hilarious. Unforgettable.

[Áine · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Union Cross has become more than a place filled with barbecue pit-cookers or the J & S Produce Stand selling their famous Brunswick Stew."

Union Cross is also filled with carpenter bees and bumble bees, beeswax, ancestors and descendants, complex relationships, hand-made quilts, fast cars, butterflies and flutterbys.

Need To Breathe is a complex book in terms of structure and characters. The narrator is Millie, the heavenly "incorporeal agent" of a woman who died giving birth in 1922. She's been assigned as the guardian angel to a girl baby, Claire, who survives a botched abortion in 1975.

Despite the fact that Millie's own daughter, Mae, an orphan, still struggles on earth with dementia and careless "caregivers," Millie looks after Claire, sometimes reluctantly.

Her antagonist emissary is Liam from the underworld: 'His eyes flash orange, a mirror of this horrible place, full of flames and workers that never rest. There are thousands of them, faceless men and women filling coal carts on this ashy plain. They start gathering around Liam and me as we fight. Punch! "You thug!" Punch! "You scumbag!" He grabs my wrists to restrain me.'

Manda and Mick are Claire's accidental parents. Manda, mentally ill, obsessed with cheerleading, product of stern and judgmental parents married "pay-the-bills" Mick, a sympathetic character with a beer belly who "works in hydraulics."

Mick gets his daughter to her frequent medical appointments and bonds with her much more closely than most fathers usually bond with daughters. They are bound together of necessity.

Manda confesses: "My job is to make homes beautiful, and I wreck my own. I earned a degree that amounts to harmony and synchronization, and I'm an expert at nothing but discord. Look at the way my relationships end up--my mother, my husband, my daughter." Release, I say. Let it all out. Maybe I should have been a landscape architect..."

The prose in this book is often breath-taking: "BLACKBERRY WINTER OCCURS in Union Cross at the same time you see the rhododendrons' pom-poms, bird fest at the feeders. Mr. Grosbeak's breast is so pink it would make the blameless blush. Spring is not too terribly different from what Heaven looks like year 'round. It's a cross between blooms and diamonds--softness, color, sparkles. The sky is a luscious shade of tangerine and there are clouds of all colors--colors you don't see on earth. They make music and wrap around you like robes. There are several Chambers, like cloud-enclosed skywalks, filled with Columns and Pearls and Doors and Bottles and divine Whatnots. They say God collects people's tears in those Bottles and holds them close in love."

And the prose rushes at the reader relentlessly: 'Sometimes that first memory is seeded deeper, though, like a cavity. Foreboding like a pair of mating mosquitoes. You don't like to mentally go back to That Place, where you banged on a locked door, visited Daddy in jail. Or maybe it's how Mama swiped a finger across a bleary, hollow eye and said, "There's no use. I can't make him love me." The pain, the esprit, something about that First Memory.'

Of Claire, Millie says: "She marvels over lattice and cocker spaniels, louvers and copper eaves, green shutters and screened porches. She sees people's white rocking chairs, and that makes her think about her daddy sitting out in the barn, listening to the bug zapper go off while the moon sings Father Abraham."

Mick's mother, Estelle, is, of course, the antithesis of Manda's mother, Mrs. Willard. We also meet Big Mac, Claire's chum who works at a fast-food joint. And Carly and Charlie, the kids next door - the Vances. Charlie's love for Claire deepens, despite her smoking, cussing, delinquent life style - and despite her chemical burns and palsied knee. He loves her red hair and freckles and her goofy aphorisms.

The book follows the Life of Claire from NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) to the prom and then to her own impending motherhood. It is, perhaps, the most unusual book I have read in the past year. The character development is excellent, and I was drawn into Millie's celestial sphere in spite of my preconception about such a narrator.

Claire cares for her elderly great aunts, Grace and Gertha, and they care for her. She brightens while they fade away into the Southern hereafter.

This is the sort of prose that compelled me to keep reading: "The stars flirt with our eyes tonight, and the cold worlds wane as I tell Claire how much I love her. Love, the ginseng of existence. It doesn't make a lick of sense, so-- She and Mick start their annual stamp-licking and coupon-tearing, scabbing over the deals, saying that, surely, if you enter enough Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes, you're bound to win something. The night fudges friendly as they settle in, saying "what color is your Jaguar?" Claire says red. It matches her hair. And Mick says blue, although I know what he's really thinking. He's getting a great deal, three girlie mags for seventy percent off the cover price."

I am giving this book only three stars because despite the fine, fine writing, the book is peppered with homonyms used incorrectly, misspellings, misplaced apostrophes, incorrect verb tenses, and words used completely out of context. It's almost as if the author occasionally uses the Thesaurus, picks an unusual word, and plops it into a sentence, malapropos. The malapropisms serve to distract the reader and interrupt the rhythms of this otherwise wonderful book.

[~Bonnie~ · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm going to assume, due to the many rave reviews on this book, that my inability to get more than 30% through is simply a belated realization on my part as to how much I dislike chick lit. I rarely read books of this genre and since this is the 2nd one this year that I gave up on, I think my assumption is right. Although I thought the idea behind the story was good, I found the characters to be at best boring, and at worst truly unlikable. Too much like a soap opera with all the over wrought melodrama. Yuck. Not for me.

[Carol · Rating 4 out of 5]

How would you tell your child you had sought an abotion and it was botched?

[Dmitri Parker · Rating 5 out of 5]

oh..wow! I just finished this novel and find myself thinking I must be terribly sadistic for being able to say I really enjoyed this story, because it really is just a huge, red panorama of human suffering. A hymn to fall out.

The beginning of the story is set in a simple, plain setting with a huge emotional charge that blasts the reader without warning.
Then the story slowly fills up with a set of colourful characters. They rarely get front-stage, but they serve a purpose, they pull the rest of the world into this pseudo-reality where the whole drama unfolds.

I wish the author had opted to go with imaginary friend or something other than a guardian angel of sorts sent from Heaven. I don't like my reading seasoned with religious motifs, but thankfully the author just brought this in as a prop, without actually building on it excessively - so it was digestible.

I figured the core motifs were 'the tumbling rock gaining momentum' and ' Murphy's laws don't apply in Heaven, only everywhere else'. And in my estimate TS build these into her storyline quite well. Everything that could possibly wrong did, and the tumbling rock just rolled and smashed until there was absolutely nothing left to break. Tara Staley just ruthlessly smashed all her cast. Not just to pieces, but to dust.
This story is about the end of all things. Because when there is nothing left, the only thing that can happen is for everything to start all over again.

[Underground Book Reviews · Rating 5 out of 5]

From the beginning Need to Breathe gives the reader very few opportunities to catch their breath. Her efficient and beautiful prose flits from paragraph to paragraph, never dwelling too long on one person or one event. The amazing thing, however, is the novel never feels shallow. Like a parachute in a gale, Breathe’s characters pop to life quickly, rich and full and ready to carry the reader to whatever destination Staley has in store.

I was concerned that the excellent, character-driven novel would bog down as the plot progressed. Thankfully, Staley never let that happen. This book never stalls. Need To Breathe is a beautiful story and I’m glad I stumbled across this piece of self-published gold.

Read the rest of this review at Underground Book Reviews: http://www.undergroundbookreviews.com...

[Debby · Rating 4 out of 5]

A chaotic, compelling story to read, discuss and stay with you long after you've read it. Crazily written, with the main characters, and then the "pixie" who helps Claire survive her preemie state, is written in italics. Though sometimes not! Claire learns to forgive her screwed up mother, who is trying to self-medicate, covering up her feelings surrounding Claire's birth. Forgiveness turns into love. Favorite quote: "Broken" is about more than chipped china or an arm in a cast. It's about something severed, never being the same. Even after it is put together again."

[Jodi · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had a hard time rating this book, I was torn between a 2 and a 3. I really expected more out if it given the highly rated reviews. It was a peculiarly written book, narrated by a dead woman. There were times when I wasn't able to put it down & times when I just wanted to give up reading it. All in all towards the end I did some skimming just to get it finished

[Rebecca · Rating 1 out of 5]

Not sure what to say about this book. I had high hopes for it in the beginning but after about 100 pages, I was sick of everyone's self-pity. And I really didn't like the ending either. There were too many unanswered questions, although with the way this book was going, I shouldn't have been surprised.

[Lisa Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was all engrossing, all encompassing and all consuming. The narrative is spot on, gives the feelings, torments and thoughts of every character and goes deep inside the soul to make sure that you feel what they feel. I have a book hangover now that this one is over!

[Maureen · Rating 2 out of 5]

Dark, sad novel about Claire, her parents Mick and Manda, Claire's wonderful great aunts, her boyfriend Charlie, and her guardian angel, Millie. I kept reading to see what would happen. I'm not sure I'll read another of this author's books.

[Stefanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was good but I don't know if I would recommend it to anybody.

[Karen · Rating 1 out of 5]

Started out well but got really weird. Lots of typos.