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But for Fortune: A Novel
On the surface, Corinth Eaton's life is going according to plan. She is succeeding in her third year of medical school and in a serious relationship with a man she intends to marry. In reality, Corinth is barely afloat, struggling with debilitating anxiety and depression, as well as the recent death of her father. A split-second decision results in her suspension from surgery rotation and reassignment to Maxwood, the state psychiatric institution where her grandmother was a patient for decades. When Corinth discovers Granny's chart at Maxwood, she's desperate to make sense of the narrative in its pages―events her family refuses to discuss. Corinth had only ever known Granny as docile and incoherent from years of medication and institutionalization, unable to provide her own account. But Corinth's rotation at Maxwood might just allow her to connect with her grandmother in ways she couldn't before.
Blooming from the seeds of author Erin Miller Reid's family history, But for Fortune follows two women fifty years apart as they attempt to give voice to their own silenced realities. What unfolds is a whirling intergenerational exploration of mental illness, discrimination, and the insidious nature of family secrets. Writing in lush prose and drawing on her own experiences as a doctor, Reid weaves together a story that is at once incisive, heartfelt, and deeply human.
Blooming from the seeds of author Erin Miller Reid's family history, But for Fortune follows two women fifty years apart as they attempt to give voice to their own silenced realities. What unfolds is a whirling intergenerational exploration of mental illness, discrimination, and the insidious nature of family secrets. Writing in lush prose and drawing on her own experiences as a doctor, Reid weaves together a story that is at once incisive, heartfelt, and deeply human.
320 pages, Hardcover
Published September 15, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
September 30, 2026
Erin Miller Reid, the author of "But for Fortune," is a physician and a native of Kentucky, and both aspects of her life shine through the pages of this engrossing novel in her confident portrayal of medical procedures and in her loving descriptions of the Appalachian setting.
The novel is told as a dual narrative spanning the lives of a grandmother and granddaughter over the course of nearly 60 years.
Mary Esther, the eventual grandmother, is a math whiz and piano prodigy—and also a social outcast—growing up in the 1940s and 1950s in a small coal-mining town. Her hardworking mother, Ruth, urges her to marry Eldon, a local miner, because “sometimes you take what you can get.” However, Eldon turns out to be violent. When Mary Esther finally fights back, she’s sent to Maxwood State Hospital, a psychiatric institution, where she will spend most of the rest of her life.
The other narrator, Corinth, is the daughter of Mary Esther’s son, Samuel, and a medical student in Kentucky in 2000. The two women would seem to lead dramatically opposite lives. Corinth enjoys educational and social freedoms that her grandmother could never dream of, and she apparently has a loving boyfriend, Adam, an art student. Yet, like Mary Esther, she suffers from depression, for which she takes medications. She also has lost her adored father, who died abruptly of a presumed heart attack three years earlier, and she’s a bit of an outcast at medical school because of her “hillbilly” accent.
The book gets off to a slow start, weighed down by an overdose of medical terminology in Corinth’s lab work. But the pages move more briskly after Corinth fumbles a diagnosis in the emergency room and is undermined by her supervisor, putting her future career at risk, and after Mary Esther moves beyond the cliches of the earlier chapters into the vivid, horrifying details of her "treatment" at Maxwood.
One of my favorite aspects of this book is the unexpected way that the author’s medical training and writer’s eye feed each other. For instance, studying a patient’s chart, Corinth muses that the “plastic lines and white EKG leads wove across his body like the interstate junction of a major city.” If only more doctors in real life could see their patients as something other than data points! (Reprinted and condensed from Story Circle Network)
The novel is told as a dual narrative spanning the lives of a grandmother and granddaughter over the course of nearly 60 years.
Mary Esther, the eventual grandmother, is a math whiz and piano prodigy—and also a social outcast—growing up in the 1940s and 1950s in a small coal-mining town. Her hardworking mother, Ruth, urges her to marry Eldon, a local miner, because “sometimes you take what you can get.” However, Eldon turns out to be violent. When Mary Esther finally fights back, she’s sent to Maxwood State Hospital, a psychiatric institution, where she will spend most of the rest of her life.
The other narrator, Corinth, is the daughter of Mary Esther’s son, Samuel, and a medical student in Kentucky in 2000. The two women would seem to lead dramatically opposite lives. Corinth enjoys educational and social freedoms that her grandmother could never dream of, and she apparently has a loving boyfriend, Adam, an art student. Yet, like Mary Esther, she suffers from depression, for which she takes medications. She also has lost her adored father, who died abruptly of a presumed heart attack three years earlier, and she’s a bit of an outcast at medical school because of her “hillbilly” accent.
The book gets off to a slow start, weighed down by an overdose of medical terminology in Corinth’s lab work. But the pages move more briskly after Corinth fumbles a diagnosis in the emergency room and is undermined by her supervisor, putting her future career at risk, and after Mary Esther moves beyond the cliches of the earlier chapters into the vivid, horrifying details of her "treatment" at Maxwood.
One of my favorite aspects of this book is the unexpected way that the author’s medical training and writer’s eye feed each other. For instance, studying a patient’s chart, Corinth muses that the “plastic lines and white EKG leads wove across his body like the interstate junction of a major city.” If only more doctors in real life could see their patients as something other than data points! (Reprinted and condensed from Story Circle Network)
June 19, 2026
Thank you NetGalley, University Press of Kentucky, and the author Erin Miller Reid for gifting me with this ARC to read and review!
Overall I don’t think this is a bad book but I just ended up wanting a bit more from it.
Liked:
-mental health struggles. Both Corinth, Mary Esther, and Sam had/have mental health problems. Corinth is struggling with depression and anxiety. Mary Esther had PPD and BPD. Sam seemed to struggle with depression from the little snippets we got from Corinth. I hated what Mary Esther had to endure. I wish she’d had access to modern medicine and support, instead she was essentially tortured (ice baths you can’t escape and ECT that turned her brain into something almost unrecognizable). It really does go to show how far medicine has come and that mental illness diagnosis aren’t something that should be shamed or dismissed.
- dual timelines. I’m a big fan of dual timelines (when done right). Watching how Mary struggled after the birth of Sam and seeing how she really had no support was tough. Her husband sucked, her mom wasn’t really there for her after the birth, her kids treated her like something to be ashamed of or joking about her condition.
Watching Corinthian struggle with med school, rotation, a failing relationship, and depression was a struggle too. Her boyfriend started off trying to be supportive but got irritated that her being depressed meant she wasn’t in the mood to have sex, and her roommate/best friend is a two timer that she shouldn’t forgive.
Disliked:
- it felt like Corinth didn’t really do much in figuring out what her grandmother (Mary) went through when she was in and out of Maxwell. I mean she found her file and then toward the end of the book there’s like 2 pages of someone explaining “speculating” about what made Mary Esther “lose it.” I just wish Corinth would’ve attempted to talk to her grandmother more and try to get the story from her. I understand that Mary Esther’s mind is so much worse off after the ECT she underwent but it just felt like Corinth made a half hearted attempt and then gave up talking to her. Also she talked to no other family member about her grandmas time in Maxwell besides one question to her mom. I was just expecting her to dive deeper into it and watch her connect more to Mary Esther’s mental health struggles and Corinth’s own struggles.
-you can pray mental illness away apparently. This aspect of the story has nothing to do with my rating but I wasn’t expecting there to be religious undertones throughout the book. I hated Corinth’s mom and great grandma’s attitude that prayer works to cure mental illness. Or that you’re not depressed, you’re just straying from your faith. Miss me with all that nonsense.
Overall I don’t think this is a bad book but I just ended up wanting a bit more from it.
Liked:
-mental health struggles. Both Corinth, Mary Esther, and Sam had/have mental health problems. Corinth is struggling with depression and anxiety. Mary Esther had PPD and BPD. Sam seemed to struggle with depression from the little snippets we got from Corinth. I hated what Mary Esther had to endure. I wish she’d had access to modern medicine and support, instead she was essentially tortured (ice baths you can’t escape and ECT that turned her brain into something almost unrecognizable). It really does go to show how far medicine has come and that mental illness diagnosis aren’t something that should be shamed or dismissed.
- dual timelines. I’m a big fan of dual timelines (when done right). Watching how Mary struggled after the birth of Sam and seeing how she really had no support was tough. Her husband sucked, her mom wasn’t really there for her after the birth, her kids treated her like something to be ashamed of or joking about her condition.
Watching Corinthian struggle with med school, rotation, a failing relationship, and depression was a struggle too. Her boyfriend started off trying to be supportive but got irritated that her being depressed meant she wasn’t in the mood to have sex, and her roommate/best friend is a two timer that she shouldn’t forgive.
Disliked:
- it felt like Corinth didn’t really do much in figuring out what her grandmother (Mary) went through when she was in and out of Maxwell. I mean she found her file and then toward the end of the book there’s like 2 pages of someone explaining “speculating” about what made Mary Esther “lose it.” I just wish Corinth would’ve attempted to talk to her grandmother more and try to get the story from her. I understand that Mary Esther’s mind is so much worse off after the ECT she underwent but it just felt like Corinth made a half hearted attempt and then gave up talking to her. Also she talked to no other family member about her grandmas time in Maxwell besides one question to her mom. I was just expecting her to dive deeper into it and watch her connect more to Mary Esther’s mental health struggles and Corinth’s own struggles.
-you can pray mental illness away apparently. This aspect of the story has nothing to do with my rating but I wasn’t expecting there to be religious undertones throughout the book. I hated Corinth’s mom and great grandma’s attitude that prayer works to cure mental illness. Or that you’re not depressed, you’re just straying from your faith. Miss me with all that nonsense.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
On the surface, Corinth Eaton’s life seems like it is going according to plan. She is in her 3rd year of medical school, focusing on her chosen specialty of surgery, and she is in a long term relationship with the man she thinks she is going to marry. However, in reality, Corinth is struggling to keep her head above water. She is struggling with debilitating anxiety and depression and following a split-second decision, she is suspended from her surgical rotation and redeployed to Maxwood, the state psychiatric hospital. Corinth is aware of Maxwood as this is the hospital her Grandmother, Mary Esther, was a patient of for many years.
When Corinth searches the records of Maxwood and finds those of her grandmother, she is desperate to understand the information recorded as well as the narrative painted of her Granny. She wants to know about events and secrets her family refuse to discuss. Can she reconnect with her Granny in a way she thought she never could before?
We are told the story from the POVs of the two women who have both been silenced because of ‘things not going to plan’ the way society believes they should. They are misunderstood and suffering from hidden mental health conditions in relation to different time periods in their lives and pressured to believe that religion can solve all. The story shows how the women’s lives and experiences run parallel, with Corinth desperate to know more about her grandmother’s life experiences and how these mirror hers today.
This was a difficult read. It is emotional and heartfelt and knowing there is a semi-autobiographical element is also touching. However, IMO, there is far too much complex and clinical descriptions of surgery, medications, treatments that I feel may lose some readers and at times, feels extremely unnecessary. The story could have been as good with these elements being greatly minimised. It would also have been good for Corinth to have explored more of what happened to Mary Ester when she wasn’t in Maxwood for prolonged periods of time.
I am so glad that mental health treatment and the understanding and recognition of conditions has progressed to where we are today in comparison to experiences described. It is essential that this is treated as importantly as acute and chronic medical and surgical problems and there is so much more of a focus on positive mental health today than ever before, but know we still have a long way to go. This book is an eye opener to historic mental health institutions and the struggles inpatients faced.
With thanks to NetGalley, University of Kentucky Press and Erin Miller Reid for the ARC in return for an honest review.
When Corinth searches the records of Maxwood and finds those of her grandmother, she is desperate to understand the information recorded as well as the narrative painted of her Granny. She wants to know about events and secrets her family refuse to discuss. Can she reconnect with her Granny in a way she thought she never could before?
We are told the story from the POVs of the two women who have both been silenced because of ‘things not going to plan’ the way society believes they should. They are misunderstood and suffering from hidden mental health conditions in relation to different time periods in their lives and pressured to believe that religion can solve all. The story shows how the women’s lives and experiences run parallel, with Corinth desperate to know more about her grandmother’s life experiences and how these mirror hers today.
This was a difficult read. It is emotional and heartfelt and knowing there is a semi-autobiographical element is also touching. However, IMO, there is far too much complex and clinical descriptions of surgery, medications, treatments that I feel may lose some readers and at times, feels extremely unnecessary. The story could have been as good with these elements being greatly minimised. It would also have been good for Corinth to have explored more of what happened to Mary Ester when she wasn’t in Maxwood for prolonged periods of time.
I am so glad that mental health treatment and the understanding and recognition of conditions has progressed to where we are today in comparison to experiences described. It is essential that this is treated as importantly as acute and chronic medical and surgical problems and there is so much more of a focus on positive mental health today than ever before, but know we still have a long way to go. This book is an eye opener to historic mental health institutions and the struggles inpatients faced.
With thanks to NetGalley, University of Kentucky Press and Erin Miller Reid for the ARC in return for an honest review.
Review of advance copy received from Author
In But for Fortune by Erin Miller Reid, two women’s lives braid across time: Corinth, a Kentucky medical student in 2000 staggering under depression, professional scrutiny, and personal betrayal; and Mary Esther, her grandmother, whose youth in mid-century Appalachia is slowly revealed through poverty, marriage, motherhood, institutionalization, and the music that survives every attempt to silence her. The novel moves like a double helix, each woman’s story illuminating the other until family history becomes less an inheritance than a living wound—and, finally, a form of witness.
I was pulled in by the book’s refusal to make suffering tidy. Corinth’s medical training is rendered with the bracing intimacy of someone who knows both the body and the hierarchy that governs it: cadaver labs, operating rooms, single-stall bathrooms where panic can be privately metabolized. Her depression isn’t dramatized as decorative gloom; it is chemical, situational, humiliating, and exhausting. Reid writes the hospital world with an unsentimental eye, but she also finds strange beauty there, the anatomy of grief, the ache of competence, the moral peril of silence.
Mary Esther’s chapters give the novel its deepest ache. Her story could have become a familiar tale of rural hardship and institutional cruelty, but Reid gives her interior life a fierce, exacting dignity. Numbers, trees, piano music, and scripture become the language of a girl trying to make order in a world determined to misread her. The novel’s structure is especially effective: as Corinth investigates what happened to her grandmother, the past doesn’t simply “explain” the present. It unsettles it. It asks what families bury, what medicine once sanctioned, and what remains in a person after almost everything has been taken.
This book will speak to readers of literary fiction, historical fiction, and multigenerational family drama. Its interwoven timelines and excavation of women’s hidden lives reminded me of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, though Reid’s voice is earthier, more clinical, and more steeped in the mountain South. But for Fortune is a tender, scalpel-sharp novel about damage, memory, and the stubborn music that outlives erasure.
I was pulled in by the book’s refusal to make suffering tidy. Corinth’s medical training is rendered with the bracing intimacy of someone who knows both the body and the hierarchy that governs it: cadaver labs, operating rooms, single-stall bathrooms where panic can be privately metabolized. Her depression isn’t dramatized as decorative gloom; it is chemical, situational, humiliating, and exhausting. Reid writes the hospital world with an unsentimental eye, but she also finds strange beauty there, the anatomy of grief, the ache of competence, the moral peril of silence.
Mary Esther’s chapters give the novel its deepest ache. Her story could have become a familiar tale of rural hardship and institutional cruelty, but Reid gives her interior life a fierce, exacting dignity. Numbers, trees, piano music, and scripture become the language of a girl trying to make order in a world determined to misread her. The novel’s structure is especially effective: as Corinth investigates what happened to her grandmother, the past doesn’t simply “explain” the present. It unsettles it. It asks what families bury, what medicine once sanctioned, and what remains in a person after almost everything has been taken.
This book will speak to readers of literary fiction, historical fiction, and multigenerational family drama. Its interwoven timelines and excavation of women’s hidden lives reminded me of The Vanishing Half by Brit Bennett, though Reid’s voice is earthier, more clinical, and more steeped in the mountain South. But for Fortune is a tender, scalpel-sharp novel about damage, memory, and the stubborn music that outlives erasure.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
I went off on several tangents before I even started reading this book, all because of its title. Despite numerous versions of a song with a similar name, the first one I could find called “There But for Fortune” was written by an American songwriter and protest singer called Phil Ochs, and I could honestly just plop the link to the lyrics here and be done with it, because the subject of the song has a lot to do with the themes explored in the book. But I’m too incensed to just shut up after having read this story, and I’ve got so much more to say!
In a nutshell, the book explores the way women are (and have been) treated when everything is not going according to plan, through the present- and past-day experience of Corinth and her grandmother Mary Esther, whose worlds further collide when Corinth, a medical student, is assigned residency in the psychiatric hospital her grandmother was admitted to in her own youth. That the story stems from the author’s family history is shocking enough, but the most mind-numbing part of this reading experience is knowing that every single woman I know, myself included, will be able to identify with at least one of the hardships described in this book on a personal level. This is not a book for the faint of heart, but the story it carries is sure to stay with you for a long time. In its essence, this is also a book about what we pass to our children through our genes and what we pass to them through our actions, and a testament to the heart-wrenching reality that love sometimes simply isn’t enough.
While this book might envelop you into a thick fog of despair, it is the kind of fog that brings blinding clarity once the clouds dissipate, and I firmly believe that, what with everything going on literally everywhere in the world, learning more about experiences like this, even if only through semi-autobiographical narrations, can only help us raise the bar for our collective humanity.
Thank you to NetGalley, University Press of Kentucky and Erin Miller Reid for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
In a nutshell, the book explores the way women are (and have been) treated when everything is not going according to plan, through the present- and past-day experience of Corinth and her grandmother Mary Esther, whose worlds further collide when Corinth, a medical student, is assigned residency in the psychiatric hospital her grandmother was admitted to in her own youth. That the story stems from the author’s family history is shocking enough, but the most mind-numbing part of this reading experience is knowing that every single woman I know, myself included, will be able to identify with at least one of the hardships described in this book on a personal level. This is not a book for the faint of heart, but the story it carries is sure to stay with you for a long time. In its essence, this is also a book about what we pass to our children through our genes and what we pass to them through our actions, and a testament to the heart-wrenching reality that love sometimes simply isn’t enough.
While this book might envelop you into a thick fog of despair, it is the kind of fog that brings blinding clarity once the clouds dissipate, and I firmly believe that, what with everything going on literally everywhere in the world, learning more about experiences like this, even if only through semi-autobiographical narrations, can only help us raise the bar for our collective humanity.
Thank you to NetGalley, University Press of Kentucky and Erin Miller Reid for the opportunity to read this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
This one was hard to read, but necessary. It is often easy to forget the struggles and pain those before us faced. This book brings that to light in an honest and unforgettable way. This book follows Corinth and Mary Esther, two women struggling to survive the toils of life during each of their times. Mary Esther is the grandmother to Corinth and each chapter is a back and forth swap between the struggles each woman faces. You feel so deeply for the plight of both, especially Mary Esther. Her story hurt me and enraged me. There were so many woman mistreated and discarded at that time, issues that could so easily be fixed now had them carted off to institutions. This story may be fiction, but her pain was real. This book will definitely bring out some strong emotions in you.
Corinth had her own battles, some of them even mirroring Mary Esther's own struggles. I think they lead to an even better bond between grandmother and granddaughter. I also enjoyed Corinth being able to discover Mary Esther's charts and learn what all she faced when she was institutionalized. It made sure that the information wasn't lost. That someone else would know of the injustices Mary Esther faced.
This book made me want to riot. To ask questions. To look beyond what I am told. This book was an eye opener in to how mental heath treatment evolved from it's horrid beginnings. A reminder to be a little more sympathetic to the unknown struggles of others.
Corinth had her own battles, some of them even mirroring Mary Esther's own struggles. I think they lead to an even better bond between grandmother and granddaughter. I also enjoyed Corinth being able to discover Mary Esther's charts and learn what all she faced when she was institutionalized. It made sure that the information wasn't lost. That someone else would know of the injustices Mary Esther faced.
This book made me want to riot. To ask questions. To look beyond what I am told. This book was an eye opener in to how mental heath treatment evolved from it's horrid beginnings. A reminder to be a little more sympathetic to the unknown struggles of others.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
A dual timeline/POV narrative telling the stories of a smart but struggling medical student in the year 2000 and the history of her grandmother in the 1940s and 1950s, this book touches on themes of family, the indignities that women have to suffer in a world dictated by patriarchal values, and mental health. It's a stark and poignant reminder of the significant advances that have been made in understanding and accepting mental illness, even if there's still much progress to be made.
I found this to be a fairly quick read, although it certainly was not lighthearted for the most part. Mary Esther's narrative was compelling, but sometimes difficult to read because of the horrendous circumstances she found herself in. Corinth's story felt a little lackluster in comparison, which was a bit unfortunate given that she is what I would the consider the primary focus character of the book. Perhaps it was because of the contrast with the very dire nature of Mary Esther's life, but much of the tension in Corinth's sections (particularly the aspects related to her relationship with Adam and her friendship with Cecily) felt a bit contrived for the purposes of manufacturing ways to make her life more dramatic. Overall, this was an interesting and emotionally resonant read with a strong sense of place.
Thank you to University Press of Kentucky for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
I found this to be a fairly quick read, although it certainly was not lighthearted for the most part. Mary Esther's narrative was compelling, but sometimes difficult to read because of the horrendous circumstances she found herself in. Corinth's story felt a little lackluster in comparison, which was a bit unfortunate given that she is what I would the consider the primary focus character of the book. Perhaps it was because of the contrast with the very dire nature of Mary Esther's life, but much of the tension in Corinth's sections (particularly the aspects related to her relationship with Adam and her friendship with Cecily) felt a bit contrived for the purposes of manufacturing ways to make her life more dramatic. Overall, this was an interesting and emotionally resonant read with a strong sense of place.
Thank you to University Press of Kentucky for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are my own.
Review of advance copy received from NetGalley
Corinth is a medical student, struggling as a intense course of study would make on struggle. After a particularly bad case she begins to spiral. Unsure of her personal family history of mental illness. She begins to dig to find things out about her grandmother and how she was treated years ago. Along the way things continue to worsen but Corinth is able to really find who she is and what she wants. I really enjoyed reading this book. I felt it followed pretty realistically on the medical side. I always find past treatments interesting and found the dual POV very intriguing and captivating. I think it gave a good perspective of how families tend not to talk about mental health and how that impacts future generations to come as they do not have past experiences to pull from. I think the author did a good job of humanizing mental health as something that can be discussed. Will definitely recommend. Thank you to University Press of Kentucky, Erin Miller Reid, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this ARC. All opinions expressed are my own.
May 7, 2026
This ARC was provided by the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review
This book had me hooked immediately it checked so many boxes for me. With that being said it was a very hard read. So many misunderstood situations in the characters lives some seriously heart wrenching parts really grab you. It definitely had me gutted in so many parts.
I loved the different times and POV‘s of both women and how they were connected. This is somewhat of a spoiler, but her husband was evil and didn’t deserve her or those kids and I hate him. It was eye-opening to hear the patients experiences and learning the author used actual sources when making this story made me love it even more!
This book had me hooked immediately it checked so many boxes for me. With that being said it was a very hard read. So many misunderstood situations in the characters lives some seriously heart wrenching parts really grab you. It definitely had me gutted in so many parts.
I loved the different times and POV‘s of both women and how they were connected. This is somewhat of a spoiler, but her husband was evil and didn’t deserve her or those kids and I hate him. It was eye-opening to hear the patients experiences and learning the author used actual sources when making this story made me love it even more!
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
Review of advance copy received from Publisher
This is a dual-timeline novel, a back and forth between the two main characters that works seamlessly. The first POV character is a struggling Appalachian medical student. The second is the story of a neurodivergent women, starting when she is a girl in 1941. The stories come together well and make sense side by side. The magic of this novel for me is the way I connected to both characters from their open chapters and felt for them. When I put the book down for a moment, I worried for them and could not stop reading this book. Recommend 100%. I would read this one again!
Did Not Finish
September 28, 2026But for Fortune by Erin Miller Reid sounded incredibly interesting and held great promise, especially since it was inspired by the author's family history and her grandmother's life. However, I ultimately had to DNF it. I found the execution to be quite flat, and the writing style made it difficult to read. Unfortunately, it didn't hold my interest, so I stepped away because I wasn't connecting with the narrative.
Thank you, NetGalley, for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
Thank you, NetGalley, for the advance reader copy in exchange for an honest review.
October 5, 2026
What’s not to love here? Reid’s debut novel features beautiful writing, believable characters that you yearn to know more about and that you desperately want to succeed, an intriguing dual timeline story, and an honest and an eye-opening look at how mental health issues were treated and viewed in the past and now. I was hooked from the beginning. I’m hoping to see more from this talented author.
August 10, 2026
This book definitely feels like a gut punch. I really enjoyed the writing style and the dual timelines. Corinth was such a relatable character for me and the struggles that Granny faced made me want to scream. Excited to see more from this author.
thoughts
April 13, 2026no, I really need to read this
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