A Heart Beyond
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Leigh Ann Eden had a great life in New York as a partner in a public relations business she’d helped to build—and lost it all when her father was charged with financial crimes. She wasn’t involved in his business or the fraud, but her very public role as the face of the PR firm made her a target for media, federal investigators, angry investors, and even the merely curious. She couldn’t withstand the pressure. She went into hiding, and avoidance became a way of life.
Her cousin, Florence, offered her a place to hide in her home in the Fan District of Richmond, Virginia. She was a lifesaver for Leigh for almost two years, but Florence died, and now Leigh’s alone and doesn’t know how to un-hide herself, how to find the courage to get a public life again—until the day an unexpected event occurs during her weekly trip to buy groceries and she comes home with a cat—an unfriendly cat who’s just as unhappy with the situation as she is. Her careful routine disrupted, Leigh is swept along as fate seems determined to force her out of the narrow life she’s constructed.
She must act. But reemerging into everyday life won’t be that simple, because the sins of the past—even though she wasn’t a party to them—will come back to harm her.
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A Cozy Comfortable (Cat) Blanket. Sometimes You Just Need Space To Heal. Ok, so I can't decide on a title for this review and both of those work, so this review gets two titles. :) The first was stolen from a phrase another reviewer used and then modified slightly to put my own twist, the second is completely my own.
This is one of those books where seemingly not much happens. We encounter a woman after the tragedy has already struck, and we get enough of the backstory to be invested in her character, but that isn't where she is *right now*. Where she is *right now* is a series of WTF comedic elements that wind up with her having a cat... that she doesn't actually own, and that seemingly doesn't want to be owned at all.
And in the process of acquiring said cat and learning to take care of it... well, maybe she finally has space to simply *be* and to heal from the aforementioned trauma. Maybe there is a possible romantic interest, but maybe there doesn't actually need to be a romance. Maybe, just maybe, we can have a book that is essentially about nothing more than finding the space to simply *be*, to allow the space to heal without focusing on the trauma or the process of healing... and simply allow the healing to happen.
Maybe this isn't the case with every trauma and every healing - there are absolutely times for more decisive and immediate actions in both, and there is absolutely space for stories detailing such journeys. But that journey isn't this journey, and Grace here brings exactly that - grace - in showing this kind of healing too. Of just taking care of your (often annoying) cat and maybe sitting under a comfortably cozy (even cat print, such as one in particular from Vera Bradley) blanket and simply *being*. Not necessarily "enjoying" the moment or having any other emotion or being "mindful" or anything else. Just. Simply. Being.
Grace has done phenomenal work with more "active" healing in prior books, and to see what she does here with such a simple concept... it is like watching a 3* Michelin chef make a boiled egg, or a particularly talented bartender make the perfect Old Fashioned... it is simply a thing of utter beauty, one that is not often found and is to be savored when you do find it.
Very much recommended.
Originally posted at bookanon.com.
