Title: The Girl Made of Clay
Author: Nicole Meier
Published: September 2018, Lake Union Publishing
Format: Paperback, 304 pages
Source: Author
Summary:
An emotional exploration of the frayed bond between a father and daughter…and what it takes to mend it.
After
Sara’s father, famous sculptor Thomas “TR” Harlow, is badly injured in a
fire, she’s suddenly forced to care for a man who is more of a stranger
than a parent. Once known as his muse, Sara long ago lost her father to
his desire to live the celebrity life.
Now TR’s abrasive and
unpredictable presence in her home is reopening old wounds—and causing
the rift in her already-strained marriage to deepen. As her young son
begins bonding with the grandfather he never knew, Sara must decide if
she can find it within herself to forgive the man who broke her heart
all those years ago. Will she walk away from a chance to rebuild what
was lost, or will she find, by bringing her father back to health, that
healing can come in many forms?
My thoughts: This is the first book I’ve read by Nicole Meier and I was captivated from the start. As much as I love my psychological thrillers and mysteries, sometimes it’s nice to take a break from them and read something different and that’s exactly what this is. This book delves into family relationships and second chances.
This is definitely a character-driven story and I liked that. We see Sara struggle with the decisions she is forced to make everyday…does she give the father who walked out on her and her mother all those years ago a second chance to make things right? She wants to find out what happened back then, to hear him out, but she also wants to yell and scream at how what he did affected her. At the same time, she is having issues in her marriage and every time she tries to talk with her husband, he turns it back on her. Oh how I disliked him at times. This book makes you feel so much about these characters and that is why I had such a hard time putting it down – in fact I read this book in one day…it’s that consuming!
Each of the characters is crafted in such a way as to evoke certain feelings and I think it was such a wise choice to do this. Nicole Meier could have gone in such a different way with TR, for instance. She could have made him into a mean old man, but she didn’t. She made him human. You might not like him all the way through, but your feelings will change and that just shows how talented the writer is to evoke this kind of emotion about a character.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and the lessons learned throughout. It was a relatively quick read and one that felt real and honest. As a new author for me, I definitely plan on reading more of Nicole’s books if this one is anything to go by!
