When You Go Away

In this powerful new novel, Jessica Barksdale IncIan offers an insightful, emotional exploration of a family torn apart by the worst of circumstances, and reunited by a love that is capable of forgiveness...and ever-deeper devotion.

what happens when a mother of three, abandoned by her husband, one day reaches the breaking point and does the unthinkable—simply gets in her car and drives away?

For Peri Mackenzie, that day comes months after her husband leaves, robbing her of all financial and emotional support. Months after she has been caring for her severely disabled daughter and her two teenagers with no help from anyone. While thirteen-year-old Carly does her best to handle laundry and her little sister's complicated medical routine, fifteen-year-old Ryan is too resentful to pretend that things are okay. It is their estranged grandfather, Carl—determined to make up for his own parenting failures in the past—who reaches out in unexpected ways. And it is Peri's return—and her fierce determination to win back the right to be their mother—that begins a healing process through which all their lives are made new.