Anna Delaney's Child — John Thorndike

Meet Anna Delaney, a smart, loving woman whose life is shattered when her car skids on some unexpected ice-the last remnants of winter-and her nine-year-old son Kevin is killed. Reeling from this loss and bruised by the effects of a now-defunct marriage, Anna must create a new life without dishonoring the old. Her good friends, her heartbreaking work on an Ohio farm, and her attentions to her father-who is mourning the loss of his wife, Anna's mother-cannot fill the gap left by young Kevin. And Anna's neurotic ex-husband, Paul, the boy's father, is both a constant unpleasant reminder of the past and a threat to Anna's future happiness.

Anna's first tentative steps toward romantic passion are mirrored by her father's budding affair with a much younger woman. Father and daughter discover in each other and in their lovers newfound emotional support. But love is not the only emotion Anna must confront: the dangerous Paul forces her to take an uncomfortable stand for the right to her own memory of Kevin. In the book's exciting climax, Anna narrowly avoids a violent confrontation and attains a victory that is both thoroughly satisfying and completely believable.

In his wise moving debut novel John Thorndike presents an unusually accurate portrait of life in America's heartland and creates one of the most memorable women characters in recent fiction