How do you face the future if you don’t know your own past?
When an unexpected pregnancy changes her dreams, seventeen-year-olrd Annie tries to keep it from her mother and her grandmother. But secrets have a way of coming out. In a household of strong women, the arrival of a new life sets off a spiral of truth that reveals a past full of whispers and lies—a past that existed in another world under the heavy hand of Soviet oppression. This history has dictated the circumstances of the present, but hope, redemption, and forgiveness will grow in the rocky places of these generational differences.
A Silver Willow by the Shore is the story of the unshakeable love between mothers and daughters and of the impact that past decisions can have on present day circumstances. This novel weaves together the stories of generations of women, from the gulags of 1930’s Siberia, to the quiet oppression of 1980’s Soviet Moscow, to present day Tennessee. It is an unforgettable narrative of the treachery of secrets, and of the light that unites the heart of a family.
"A Silver Willow by the Shore is more than a story, it's a tapestry. Love woven with grief. Brokenness threaded with redemption. The secrets we hold close and the choices that become a part of us. Kelli Stuart's gifted pen breathes vivid life into both past and present--from the bitter hardship of survival in a Siberian gulag, to the shadow-world of Soviet Moscow, to a Tennessee family struggling to rediscover the meaning of hope. Layered, deeply moving, and ultimately inspiring, this is a novel that will linger in your heart far beyond the final page."
“A deep, contemplative novel built around three generations of women asking the same timeless question: ‘Who am I?’ The answer unfolds with Stuart’s trademark attention to history and hauntingly beautiful prose.”
"Kelli Stuart is a master at the care and handling of the characters who people her novels. She writes them with sensitivity, cultivating them with dignity and seeing them through their troubles with empathy and integrity.
In A Silver Willow by the Shore we meet three generations of women who we come to love, ache alongside, and learn to find hope with. In the reading, we become part of their family, wishing the very best for them as they overcome past hurts and secrets, and observing them realizing their great need for one another. For readers of The Nightingale and The Light Between Two Oceans. A beautiful, gentle, triumph of a book."
