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A woman challenges the constraints of life in Prohibition-era Appalachia in this sweeping and richly rewarding novel about endurance, survival, and redemption.

The McKenzie women, empowered with a formidable history rooted in the foothills of Appalachia, have passed down their folk healing wisdom through generations. Rosalee, the last living headstrong daughter in Granny McKenzie’s line, soaked up everything she could about the secrets of the forest before a series of tragedies left her alone, without the protection of the women who came before her.

The close-knit ties of Rosalee’s childhood are long gone. Now, at her eastern Kentucky farm, she bears a marriage with a volatile bootlegger. She struggles with the demands of motherhood. And her independence is relegated to its “proper place”: under the thumb of men. Her optimism dimming, Rosalee finds solace in the Kentucky woods, a place that holds secret powers of protection from a life Rosalee can no longer control. At the graves of her female ancestors, beside the waters of an enchanting spring, Rosalee returns time and again to consider her future—and discovers a mysterious connection to her past.

As Rosalee wrestles with her isolation, being a wife in an increasingly dangerous marriage, and being a woman of her time, she must draw on her strength and resilience to survive—and to protect—on her own terms.

Review:

Atmospheric, sensitive, and sobering!

A Woman in Time is a moving, multi-generational story that transports you to rural Kentucky between 1899 and 1939 and into the lives of the McKenzie family, especially the women, and all the secrets, smiles, tears, misery, abuse, compassion, strength, powerful emotions, and unimaginable tragedy that has tied them together through the years.

The prose is expressive and fluid. The characters are vulnerable, tormented, and resilient. And the plot is a heart-tugging, compelling tale of life, love, loss, family, friendship, poverty, misogyny, courage, desperation, self-preservation, motherhood, violence, and survival.

Overall, A Woman in Time is a gritty, astute, promising fictional debut by Conn that is a wonderful reminder that even after suffering the most unimaginable hardships and cruelty, humanity still has the innate ability to hope for better and still be kind and compassionate to others.

This book is available now.

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