Carry Yourself Back to Me

A beautifully written thoroughly engaging novel. Deborah Reed's prose is lyrical elegant and vivid-she is a standout among new American novelists.-Jessica Anya Blau author of The Summer of Naked Swim Parties and Drinking Closer to HomeFamed alt-country artist Annie Walsh has more than enough reason to sing her version of the blues including a broken heart a stalled career and a troubled family. Annie seeks refuge from an upended love affair with her producer Owen Pettybone by sequestering herself at home with her old dog Detour surrounded by a lush Florida tangelo grove. Soon however this quiet small-town existence-far from recording studios ardent fans and affairs of the heart-comes crashing down around her. A violent murder connected to her brother Calder threatens to tear her family apart and forces Annie to shore up her loyalties and uproot profound disappointments from her distant past. Like a fine and forlorn love ballad the gifted conflicted Annie lulls the reader into a journey through love and loss that mines the mysterious and at times paradoxical rhythms of the human heart.Deborah Reed has written here a novel peopled with real flesh-and-bone characters-men and women both as good and delightfully flawed as our best friends our spouses ourselves. And the icing on this cake is Reed's lucid lovely prose.-Kirsten Sundberg Lunstrum author of This Life She's Chosen and Swimming with StrangersDeborah Reed comes from a long line of storytellers and musicians and finds creative inspiration in the composition of alt-country folk and homespun goods. She currently resides in the Pacific Northwest where she also writes suspense fiction under the name of Audrey Braun.