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Water Finds a Way
Meghan Perry
360 pages
Delphinium Books
November 12, 2024
Amazon.com, Goodreads, Bookshop.org
This was a sleeper; at the very beginning, I wasn’t sure how I felt about it. I needed to have a little patience. It was definitely worth it. The protagonist is a very complicated character. In order for me to like a book (or a novel or a show), I need to care about someone in the book. I wasn’t at all sure how I felt about the protagonist who is tough as nails (at least on the surface) and an ex con. As time went on, she embedded herself into my heart and I found myself rooting for her.
There was enough of a plot for me, but this is essentially a character driven novel. The author goes very deep into several of the characters and is a master of using relationships, actions and words to delve into people instead of telling us how we are supposed to feel. I love how flawed many of the characters were yet they were so compelling that I found myself rooting for them.
Essentially, the plot is this: the protagonist, Blake, returns home to Maine after getting out of prison. The questions are whether she can really go home again, especially to a small town where everyone knows everyone’s business. Can she forgive herself for what she did that caused her to go to prison? I love books like this that explore very large themes without hitting the reader upside the head with them, instead exploring those big ideas through character development and relationships.
The author also gives the reader a strong sense of place. I think that is important in a novel like this where the setting impacts the characters, helping to make them who they are. In this way, Perry reminds me of Shannon Bowring, who also wrote about Maine, where the place itself feels almost like a character.
This is not an easy book to read. Bad things happen to good people. But it is definitely worth reading (and possibly worth rereading) because of what it says about how flawed characters can be truly good at heart and how redemption is possible, even under difficult circumstances.
I will be waiting for a sequel about this protagonist!
Thanks to Edelweiss and to Dephinium Press for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for my honest opinion.
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