This week’s other featured books, “Troglodyte,” by Tracy DeBrincat and “Lit Blue Sky Falling,” by Meg Files, can be seen by scrolling down below this post, or by clicking the author’s name on our Authors page.
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THE BOOK: A Hollow Bone
PUBLISHED IN: 2017
THE AUTHOR: Dawn Hogue
THE EDITOR: Signe Jorgenson Editorial Services
THE PUBLISHER: Water’s Edge Press LLC
SUMMARY: When forty-year-old Angelina Miranda is told she has stage-four breast cancer, she realizes that everything she has done in her life has not been enough. It has not been nearly enough. And it’s not just that. She realizes that it has all been wrong, too. So, with only months to live, Angelina knows she must set things right with her daughter, Sophie, something she regrets she never did with her father. It’s her relationship with her father—complicated by her mother’s tragic accident—that propels teenage Angelina on a reckless course that shapes her life and robs her of the love she craves. Set in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, A Hollow Bone is a rich chronicle of Angelina’s family, their hopes and dreams, and the sharp frailty that makes them human.
THE BACK STORY: The novel delves deeply into family dynamics, going back into the family’s history, beginning with the main character’s young parents, their first days of marriage, their hopes and desires, and the choices each one makes that impact their future. While daily life and family relationships are at the heart of this novel, so are the rituals of life and death, from simple family dinners to funeral rites. Loss, love, and redemption are the major themes.
WHY THIS TITLE: Without revealing too much, the title A Hollow Bone fits the story in several ways. First, it connects to one of the legends describing how Sheboygan, Wisconsin got its name. More directly, as a child June Schneider finds a hollow bone—the leg of a gull—on the shore of Lake Michigan, and she keeps it in her treasure tin, until years later, when she gives it to her daughter Angelina to wear around her neck on a length of twine as a symbol of strength.
WHY SOMEONE WOULD WANT TO READ IT: A Hollow Bone explores one of the big questions in life: “How ought we love and care for one another?” The story delves into multiple interpersonal relationships: spouses, parents and children, but also the role that close neighbors play in our lives. Like we all do, the characters in A Hollow Bone sometimes fail those they love the most.
REVIEW COMMENTS:
“Dawn Hogue tells a powerful story in A Hollow Bone. The writing is strong, and the author is a master of both description and characterization. I feel like I know these people, and I also feel like I know this place. Hogue has artfully woven three generations of a family, brought them together in a singular character (Angelina), and illuminated the entire range of human emotion. —Signe Jorgenson, Co-Editor in Chief, Stoneboat Literary Journal
“This book is a real page-turner because you will want to know what happens to the people in this family. Even more lovely are those relationships that develop between neighbors, which are sometimes less fraught with expectation than the relationships between kin. Hogue captures it all in this tale of terminal illness (not just cancer, but life itself) filled with missed opportunities and second chances that come (almost) too late. “—Lisa Vihos, author of Fan Mail from Some Flounder.
AUTHOR PROFILE: https://www.dawnhogue.com/about-me/
SAMPLE CHAPTER: See the book’s Amazon page.
LOCAL OUTLETS: Book Heads Books, Plymouth Wisconsin
WHERE ELSE TO BUY IT: watersedgepress.com, Ingram, IndieBound, Amazon
PRICE: $16
CONTACT THE AUTHOR: dawnhogue.com
Snowflakes in a Blizzard 