Safe Within: A Novel [Paperback]

One of today’s most compelling voices in women’s fiction, acclaimed novelist Jean Reynolds Page delivers a story of unanticipated familial ties, exploring with compassion and humor the hope, forgiveness, and sometimes just plain tolerance necessary to hold a family together.Safe Withinis rich with heart and Southern atmosphere, as a loving wife, facing an almost unbearable impending tragedy, returns with her husband and son to Lowfield, North Carolina—and to a cabin high up in the trees—where she must contend with, and somehow make peace with, an infuriatingly eccentric mother-in-law. Readers touched by this author’s earlier work—including the much belovedThe Space between Before and After—can rejoice, and fans of Jodi Picoult and Jacquelyn Mitchard will be adding another name to their list of favorites authors.
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A novel of how family happens—whether you like it or not

Elaine and Carson Forsyth have returned to the tree house—Elaine's childhood home, a cabin nestled high in the branches of two oaks beside a North Carolina lake—where forty-nine-year-old Carson has chosen to spend the waning days of his life. As Elaine prepares for a future without her beloved husband, their solace is interrupted. Carson's mother, Greta, has set loose a neighbor's herd of alpacas and landed herself in police custody. While Carson, remarkably, sees humor in the situation, Elaine can only question what her obligations are—and will be—to a woman who hasn't spoken to her in more than twenty years.

In the wake of Carson's death, Elaine and their grown son, Mick, are thrust into the maelstrom of Greta, the mother-in-law and grandmother who never accepted either of them. Just as they are trying to figure out their new roles in the family, Mick uncovers unexpected questions of his own. A long-ago teenage relationship with a local girl may have left him with more than just memories, alC,