This Is Home

Starred review from February 25, 2019
Authentic characters resonate throughout this engrossing novel from Duffy (The Salt House) as a woman tries to understand why her husband, a soldier with PTSD, has left her. Quinn Ellis’s husband, John, was deployed twice in their five years of marriage; after the last tour, he came back to their home in Massachusetts but soon after disappeared.
Quinn’s work as a nanny is the only thing keeping her anchored while she tries to find John and waits for him to get in touch with her. After receiving a notice that her lease won’t be renewed, Quinn accepts an offer from John’s former sergeant, Bent Winters, a local cop in Paradise, Mass.: she can stay on the first floor of the triple-decker he lives in with his sisters, Lucy and Desiree, and his teen daughter, Libby. Alternating points of view from Libby and Quinn provide the contrasting perspectives of a teenage girl on the brink of adulthood and a wife coping with the sorrow and guilt of her fractured marriage. Over time, Quinn and Libby come to see each other as family, healing their mutual loneliness. A healthy dose of humor balances the sadness of Quinn’s story. Intensely real and deeply emotional, Duffy’s rich novel is worth savoring from the very first page. Agent: Danielle Burby, Nelson Literary.

Narrators Renata Friedman and Emily Woo Zeller provide their vocal talents to a new audiobook that explores the boundaries of what home can be. Zeller strikes the perfect balance of frustration and inquisitiveness in her portrayal of Libby Winters--a 16-year-old who has lost her mother to cancer and finds herself moving back and forth between her quirky aunts and her father. Friedman skillfully captures Quinn Ellis, a young wife with twins and a husband with PTSD who seems to have simply disappeared. The voices of Friedman and Zeller are comforting even as the audiobook deals with difficult subjects like PTSD and the loss of a family member to cancer. V.B. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine