Just Jennifer

Let Me Die in His Footsteps by Lori Roy (Dutton, June 2, 2015)

This book may just be Edgar-Award-Winner Lori Roy’s break-out novel as she tells the story of two families in mid-20^th century Kentucky, two families that are forever bound by the evil between them.  On a girl’s 15^th half-birthday, it is said that if she looks into a well at the stroke of midnight, she will see the face of the many she will marry.  Annie Holleran dares to look into the well that belongs to the Baines, a family the Hollerans have stayed away from for two decades since Joseph Carl Baines was hanged for a crime against a Holleran, a crime some doubt he committed.  Told between the two years (1936 and 1952) Annie’s mother Sarah narrates the story of her childhood and Annie’s Aunt Juna and Annie tells her story in 1952 as she awaits the lavender harvest on her family’s farm, and the possible return of Juna, something which may cause a confluence of events which will irrevocably change the lives of the Hollerans and reveal secrets meant to be kept.  A new voice in Southern literary fiction, Roy reveals Annie’s family history layer by layer, pulling back at times, creating a delicate tension that will hold readers’ attention and leave them yearning for more.