Just Jennifer

Flying Shoes by Lisa Howorth (Bloomsbury, June 2014)

Mary Byrd Thornton has gone about her average life in Mississippi, taking care of her husband and two children, never forgetting the step-brother who was molested and murdered forty years ago and whose killer was never caught.  Now she is contacted by the police in Virginia who think they have a viable suspect but need Mary Byrd and her family to come to Virginia where they will have to confront and relive this terrible tragedy.  As Mary Byrd makes plans to travel to Virginia, she faces a tragedy in the family of her housekeeper in addition to the ghosts that haunt her own family.  On her way home to her family, she makes one more detour at the funeral of a friend, but returns home ready to be a wife and mother, maybe a little more attentive and present than before.  The plot line that explores the life of Mary Byrd and her family since the death of her step-brother and how they react to it possibly being solved after almost thirty years would be enough to sustain a strong narrative, but first time novelist Lisa Howorth adds layers of interesting, well-developed characters to further develop this already emotionally resonant plot.