When Your Mother Doesn't: A Novel

by Jill Kelly

A Revealing and Intimate Story of What a Mother Will—and Will Not—Do for Her DaughtersWhat kind of women do daughters become when their fathers are missing and their mothers can’t love them? How do they find love and ways to love themselves?Nearly three decades of secrets lie between Lola Ashby and the two girls she reluctantly raised. Now, prompted by the one father figure she respects, older daughter Frankie agrees to drive from Portland to visit her ailing mother, who abandoned the girls when they were in high school. When younger daughter Callie announces to Frankie that she’s moving her fashion model career to Los Angeles from the East Coast, Frankie badgers her sister into meeting up in the Idaho panhandle for a family reunion to dilute the impact of their mother’s indifference.However, on Frankie’s first night on the road, the trip gets more complicated when a well-dressed elderly woman at a rest stop dumps a young boy in her lap with a request to take him on to Montana. And Callie’s exit from Pittsburgh is fraught with its own shady and violent difficulties. Meanwhile, Lola strengthens her resolve to keep the past and its secrets where they belong.Skyhorse Publishing, as well as our Arcade, Yucca, and Good Books imprints, are proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction—novels, novellas, political and medical thrillers, comedy, satire, historical fiction, romance, erotic and love stories, mystery, classic literature, folklore and mythology, literary classics including Shakespeare, Dumas, Wilde, Cather, and much more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.

320 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 21, 2015

About the author

I am a child of the Pacific Northwest, born in a tiny village up the Columbia Gorge in a snowstorm. I grew up in and around Portland, Oregon, then lived for a number of years in California, Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and France before settling into Portland again about 15 years ago.

For two decades I was a college professor of French, English as a Second Language, and writing. When I moved west, I reinvented my life, becoming a freelance editor and writer. Eventually I also developed myself into a visual artist (pastels) and an author (memoir, fiction). For some examples, visit my website.

Sober Truths was written over a 7-year period. I wanted to understand the patterns of my past and the various threads of my present. I wrote over 50 stories and included a bit fewer than half. Memoir can be tricky business as memories are unreliable. In the end, all we can do is tell about our own remembrances, our own realities. I hope you enjoy reading the book!

Reviews

[Donna · Rating 2 out of 5]

An okay story. But seemed drawn out and never getting a good idea of where it was going. Started out with Frankie getting a boy dropped into her life, and she has to find his mother. But you get nothing more on this until the end. It's what intrigued me to pick up this book. It does come full circle but seems to take forever as you read all about Frankie's messed up like, then Callie's messed up life. Then Lola's, but hers was more interesting with mystery that keeps you going to the end.

[Jeramy L · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is ok. Working with women in recovery for drugs, alcohol and other types of issues, I was looking forward to this story and exploring the relationships and development of the characters. WYMD is somehow too detailed and yet not detailed enough. For as long as it took us to get to the end, it almost seemed rushed. Tie it up in a "happy ending" bow and call it good.

[Vicki Jones · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was somewhat entertaining.

[Alia Houston · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great start, good build up, left me wanting another chapter or a second book because the ending felt unfinished.

[Alexis White · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF. the audiobook version was monotone, there was absolutely no distinction between characters or emotion at all and couldn’t take it anymore.