My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Katherine “Katie-Lee” Fontenot is a fifty-year-old Louisiana-to-New-York transplant who moved away from home to escape her family and memories. When her younger sister is killed in a freak accident at the zoo where she works, Katie-Lee heads home for the funeral. And runs straight into all the things she has been trying to escape since leaving. Family tension. Skeletons in most everyone’s closet. A long-ago tragedy that has never been dealt with. Anger. Forgiveness. Love. It’s all there in Opelousas, and Katie-Lee is going to have to face all of it.
This is the third book of Wheaton’s I have read, and, like the others, I did enjoy it. Wheaton is originally from Louisiana, and it shows in the details. I don’t know anything about Cajun country, but the setting, tone, and characterizations feel real in a way I am not sure can be fully captured if you don’t know those pieces personally. The family dynamic will probably resonate with anyone who has a family. Katie-Lee buried a lot when she left home for New York, and coming back for the funeral brings it all bubbling up again, for her and the rest of her family and hometown friends. A lot of what surfaces is difficult and emotionally charged, but she also finds there were good moments. Times of joy, and fun, and laughter. It’s all woven together in a story that is very internal, but not preachy or dull. It’s set in the ’70s, and the cultural references (Facebook and Katie-Lee’s cell phone are almost characters), are very evident. There’s angst, anger, frustration, tears, laughter, and all the other human emotions brought on by a shared tragedy. In other words, it’s a story about people and all the baggage that goes along with being a person.
If you enjoy stories about family, facing loss, and discovering if you really can go home again, you will probably enjoy this one. I did.
View all my reviews
My latest book is a collection of very short stories, half science fiction and half fantasy, called “Crossed Wires and Other Very Short Stories”. I have also written a few other short pieces, another collection, two novels, and an urban fantasy series. You can find most of them at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and wherever e-books are sold. A few are also available from Amazon in paperback. My novel, “Circle Unbroken” is also on Kindle Unlimited, if that’s your reading preference. You can find out about all of them here.
There are also some stories you can read here on my site, mostly the yearly Halloween short I write, but there are a few others. You can read them from here
And So On... 