At the heart of both of these novels are families who have suffered a loss and are now trying to pick up the pieces. As they do, secrets are uncovered and some wounds continue to fester, with no solution in sight.
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Read This:Border Markers by Jenny Ferguson (NeWest Press)Then That:Escape Plans by Teri Vlassopoulos (Invisible Publishing)At the heart of both of these novels are families who have suffered a loss and are now trying to pick up the pieces. As they do, secrets are uncovered and some wounds continue to fester, with no solution in sight.In Border Markers the Lansing family has been shattered by an accidental death that exposes preexisting cracks in their suburban life in a small town on the border between Alberta and Saskatchewan. Son Chuck is incarcerated, daughter Poppy is trying to bury her pain in adventure in South America, and husband and wife Mike and Barb are dealing with these absences in ways that are pushing them farther away from each other.While Border Markers is written in short flash fiction chapters, Escape Plans is an in-depth look at the fractured family of Niko, Anna, and Zoe. Even before tragedy struck them the family was beginning to crumble. As Anna and Zoe try to find their way back to each other in the present, we discover in chapters from Niko’s perspective the circumstances that led to this sad state of affairs for the Kiriakos family.Tragedy and secrets do not a happy family make but both the Lansing and the Kiriakos families continue to live their lives as best they can to come out the other side. As a reader, we can only hope they do.
* * *For more of our literary pairings, check out past Read This, Then That duos here.
