BODIES OF WATER
In 1960, Billie Valentine is a young housewife living in a sleepy Massachusetts suburb, treading water in a dull marriage and caring for two adopted daughters. Summers spent with the girls at their lakeside camp in Vermont are her one escape--from her husband's demands, from days consumed by household drudgery, and from the nagging suspicion that life was supposed to hold something different.
Then a new family moves in across the street. Ted and Eva Wilson have three children and a fourth on the way, and their arrival reignites long-buried feelings in Billie. The affair that follows offers a solace Billie has never known, until her secret is revealed and both families are wrenched apart in the tragic aftermath.
Fifty years later, Ted and Eva's son, Johnny, contacts an elderly but still spry Billie, entreating her to return east to meet with him. Once there, Billie finally learns the surprising truth about what was lost, and what still remains, of those joyful, momentous summers.
In this deeply tender novel, T. Greenwood weaves deftly between the past and present to create a poignant and wonderfully moving story of friendship, the resonance of memories, and the love that keeps us afloat.
PRAISE FOR BODIES OF WATER
"Complex and compelling."
--Eleanor Brown, New York Times bestselling author of The Weird Sisters
“A wrenching look at what happens when two people fall in love in the wrong place at the wrong time… Beauty and tragedy at the same time, darkness then light — those are Greenwood hallmarks. The author now of seven novels, she’s terrific with characters, with the multiple textures that make someone seem human on the page. She has some interesting things to say here about memory, and the ending is as moving as anything she’s written.”
– The San Diego Union Tribune
"Greenwood’s sixth novel, a tale of love and loyalty, owes its success to the poetic prose, as well as the compelling chronology she employs... This compassionate, insightful look at hope and redemption is a richly textured portrait. This gem of a story is a good choice for those who enjoy family novels."
– Library Journal
“Greenwood’s latest is a beautiful, albeit earth-shattering testament, to survival during an era in which homosexual relationships are nearly forbidden. The prose is beautiful as always, painting a lush portrait of the relationship between Billie and Eva, as well as of 1960s New England.”
– RT Book Reviews
“Evocative, poignant and precise prose makes this story of love between two simply ordinary women trapped in complicated circumstances way more than the sum of its parts.”
– OutSmart
“The love story that plays out between the two women—at times tragic, at times beautiful—is rightly taboo for the early-60’s setting.”
– San Diego Reader
“T. Greenwood has created a heart-breaking love story that will resonate in my mind for a very, very long time. Her characters are vibrant and believable in both their love and their cruelty. While it's set in the late 50s and early 60s, there are so many issues that still, sadly, stand today. This is not a typical love story, and it will make you angry, sad, joyous, confused, afraid, misty-eyed and disgusted no matter what side of the issues you identify with. I don't want to tell you more, I want you to read this book and experience the careful reveals that this author writes so very, very well. T. Greenwood just gets better and better with every book.”
– Jackie Blem, The Tattered Cover Bookstore
“Powerfully written, haunting and lyrical, Bodies of Water is best when it gives us an unflinching look a time in history that is still mostly painted with idyllic hues, when the fledgling pushback of women against patriarchal values was only just beginning.”
– LitStack
“Deliciously good.”
– AfterEllen
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