Forgive Me

Amanda Eyre Ward

Nadine Morgan is a travelling journalist. She is based in Mexico when she is attacked and nearly killed following up a story. She returns to Cape Cod to recuperate with her taciturn father and new stepmother. She is not allowed to return to her job for at least six months, much to her disgust. She is a loner, having no connections with people other than acquaintance level and coworker type friends. She has an apartment in Mexico City, but her real home is the road, pursuing the latest specatcular story.

She had started the work when she was still in college. While in her master's journalism program she went to South Africa during apartheid and the uprising of the blacks and the Freedom Fighters. That is where she connected with people - and was torn apart from them. She hasn't returned since.

Hank Duarte is Nadine's doctor in Cape Cod. Every time she tries to ignore her injuries and return to her job, he stops her and reminds her how fragile she still is. Finally he takes her to Nantucket to recuperate. While there she comes across a story about a young man from Nantucket that is the final scene of the incident that sent her to South Africa all those years ago. Without telling anybody until after she arrives, she leaves for Capetown to finish up and close that chapter. She also has to decide about her future as she realizes she is in love with Hank.

Forgive Me is a story on different levels. Amanda Eyre Ward has twined together the character's present and the past through Nadine's memories of her first trip to South Africa. The events from the late 1980's are vivid without being graphic in the violence. The struggles of racism and injustice are the main theme of the memories and present trip yet aren't oppressive to the point of detracting from the novel.

A third story line is also in the novel - the journals of a young boy who is venturing away from his Nantucket home without his parent's knowledge to follow up an acting opportunity. This is a completely separate story with an unexpected connection. If you explained it to me before hand, I would have said it would never work. Yet it does. It doesn't fit with the South Africa story line, but pulls together Nadine's.

Although the novel isn't long, Ward has craftily woven together a haunting story that will linger in the mind and could spark some interesting book discussions.

Notice: Suggestive dialogue or situations

Publicist provided for review