About the Book
On the surface, Melanie
Kingstad-Keyes’s life is the picture of success. She’s a tenure track professor
at a prestigious university and has a perfect husband. But a recent miscarriage
has left her reeling and her marriage tenuous. Selling her family’s Lake Indigo
summer home, which she hasn’t visited in fifteen years, feels like the perfect
distraction from her problems. Now, she only needs to persuade her younger
sister, Kelsey, to go along with her plan.
Stuck in a dead-end job, Kelsey Kingstad bounces from one
doomed relationship to the next as she struggles to jumpstart her adult life.
Carrying the guilt of her mother’s untimely death, Kelsey is reluctant to let
go of the Victorian house filled with memories of her mom and their childhood.
When the sisters find a mysterious hidden door, Melanie and
Kelsey discover that they can directly view their mother’s younger years and
learn all the secrets she never shared with them. Delving into her memories is
fun at first, but Melanie and Kelsey quickly uncover difficult truths, throwing
their own life choices into question and making them wonder if they ever truly
knew their mother. Visiting the past may help them find closure, but the cost
could be steeper than they realize.
My Review
Loved it. I had a feeling during the first chapter I was going to have a hard time putting down this book, and I was not wrong. I love a bit of magical realism in a novel, a little time travel twist. Versions of Her offered that, a beautiful story of the bond between mother and daughter, the complicated bond between sisters, and many other underlying themes throughout the way. I felt transported to Lake Indigo, could envision the summer home both past and present, and shed multiple tears while reading. Beautiful writing, excellent story-telling, and a page-turning plot made this a five star book in my collection.
5 stars
