Book Review: Troubled Water

The world is burning—and Corrine will do anything to put out the flames. After her brother died aboard an oil boat on the Mississippi River in 2013, Corrine awakened to the realities of climate change and its perpetrators. Now, a year later, she finds herself trapped in a lonely cycle of mourning both her brother and the very planet she stands on. She’s convinced that in order to save her future, she has to make sure that her brother’s life meant something. But in the act of honoring her brother’s spirit, she resurrects family ghosts she knows little about—ghosts her grandmother Cora knows intimately.

The world is burning—but it always has been. Cora’s ghosts have followed her from her days as a child integrating schools in 1950s Nashville to her new life as a mother, grandmother, and teacher in Mississippi. As a child of the civil rights movement, she’s done her best to keep those specters away from her granddaughter. She faced those demons, she reasons to herself, so that Corinne would never know they existed.

When Corrine’s plan to stage a dramatic act of resistance peels back the scabs of her family wounds and puts her safety in jeopardy, both grandmother and granddaughter must bring their unspoken secrets into the light to find a path to healing. Their world hangs in the balance as past and future meet in the present moment.

Trouble Water is the debut novel from Mary Annaïse Heglar will be published May 7, 2024. Harper Muse provided a complimentary copy for review. Opinions expressed in this review are completely my own.

I had the pleasure earlier this month at PLA 2024 to listen to Helgar as one our daily speakers. Her primary work is in the field of climate change, and she has written several nonfiction books and articles on the subject. Her passion for this showed as she was moving her message into new channels with a children's book and this novel. There is no denying that she knows her stuff when it comes to this very important topic.

I found myself quickly connected to Corrine and her family. Helgar's attention to everyday details brought the story to life. It was easy to see how this family has been through so much, and they were all coming to terms with loss and grief in their own ways.

The story itself stretches over many months (not counting occasional flashbacks - some slightly confusing based on where they were inserted with the current day flow of things). For me, that impacted the momentum and created gaps or lapses. It felt like I was checking in periodically on the characters rather than having an urgency to their plans and actions. Hopefully that is something the author can work as she continues to do more fiction; I would certainly seek out more work from her down the road.