Mothers and Other Strangers [Paperback]

My father proposed to my mother at gunpoint when she was nineteen, and knowing that she was already pregnant with a dead man’s child, she accepted.

Thus begins this riveting story of a woman's quest to understand her recently deceased mother, a glamorous, cruel narcissist who left her only child, Elsie, an inheritance of debts and mysteries. While coping with threats that she suspects are coming from the cult-like spiritual program her mother belonged to, Elsie works to unravel the message her dying mother left for her, a quest that ultimately takes her to the South African family homestead she never knew existed.

Gina Sorellis a writer, actor, and creative director who was born in South Africa and now lives in Toronto with her family. After two decades as a working actor, including ten years in L.A., she returned to her first love, writing, graduating with distinction from the UCLA Extension Writers’ Program. Gina pairs her novel writing with her work as the creative director of Eat My Words, a San Francisco–based branding firm. This is her first novel.

A Refinery29 Best Book of 2017

Mesmerizing and quietly revealing, Sorells memorable novel expertly weaves Elsies search for answers about her origins with her own journey of healing.
Publishers Weekly

Sorell covers a lot of ground  physically, emotionally, spiritually and psychologically  and deftly weaves it all into a complex plot. The loaded narrative, tide-like in its advancing and receding movement, runs over an undercurrent of self-deprecating sarcasm and pity born of hurt and emotionally fueled assumptions. In other words, the stuff many mothers and daughters allow themselves to get caught up in.
The Toronto Star

A fascinating look at a unique and fractured parent-child relationship&engaging and tense.
Kirkus Reviews

Sorell reveals herself as an author to watch... Ultimatelló.