Across the Narrows

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Book Description (from Amazon.ca)

In 1924, at Brooklyn’s Kings County Hospital, Ruby del Palacio delivers a blue baby weeks early. The baby girl dies for want of oxygen. Within a year, Ruby delivers another baby girl named Alice.

Gradually realizing that her sole role in the del Palacio household is to conceive, deliver, and nurse babies, trapped by societal expectations in a time of limited women’s rights and rampant injustices, Ruby summons the courage to sue for a legal separation from her Colombian husband, Juan. Her efforts are met with a counter lawsuit, resulting in Juan being granted custody of their six children. Months later, he flees the state with the children, leaving Ruby abandoned and bereft.

Decades later, Alice embarks on a journey to find her long-lost mother. It is only when a dear friend imparts a profound revelation to Alice, explaining that forgiveness necessitates relinquishing all hope for a different past, that Alice finds the strength to accept her history.

Across the Narrows unravels as a sweeping family saga, centered around a tragedy that shapes the del Palacio family’s destiny and leaves little room for forgiveness. With themes of love, loss, and resilience, this poignant novel explores the transformative power of forgiveness and the pursuit of one’s own identity in the face of adversity.

My Thoughts

This is a story of love, resiliency and struggle in a time period where women didn’t seem to have many rights regardless of their status in life. It is about pain and doing what needs to be done in order to survive regardless of the consequences. It is also about deceit and how far someone will go, again with no thought on how it would affect others.

Ms. Burns is a new to me author and one that I will follow as long as she writes the stories. She hit on all of my emotions right from the start. I felt empathy, love, anger and frustration. Ms. Burns grabbed my attention and kept it with every turn of the page.

At times, I found myself wanting to know more of Ruby and her story especially given the glimpses provided over the decades. The reader is able to see how Ruby dealt with her losses, how her children grew up not knowing her, but remembering the love.

It is that love that pushed Alice to find out the truth. I can’t go further into it without giving away too much but know the character and storyline are easy to follow and have been developed very well. This will appeal to many readers who love getting lost in a story. Well done Ms. Burns. A truly well written novel.

Rating: 4 stars

Reviewed by: KellyR