Winter brings the longed-for rains but also a cancer diagnosis for Zoe’s husband, Jay, which plunges the family into disbelief and fear. The children lean in close to their parents, can’t stop touching them. As Jay’s treatment begins, nature lets loose with strange and startling encounters, while a shadowy figure hovers about the corners of the house.
First, Zoe’s fear turns to anger: How can I love you if I am to lose you? How can I live in joy when the sky is falling? But she gradually learns that it’s possible to love anything, even terrible things—if you can love them for what they are teaching you.
This title will be released on May 9, 2023.
Goodreads | Amazon
Rating: 3 Stars
My Review: The writing style and plot of this one was kind of meh for me. I think that this is going to be one of those titles that you either hate it or love it. For me I think that I most likely should have just DNFed it.
Review
“. . . readers are treated to a poignant story of tenuous growth amid catastrophes. An often moving story of uncertainty and loss.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Ann Putnam’s glorious I Will Leave You Never is a story of threat and survival and the ties of love that bind us to one another. This novel resonates with the fragile and yet persistent threads of our living, threads that will vibrate inside you for a long time to come.”
—Lee Martin, author of Pulitzer finalist The Bright Forever
“Ann Putnam is the kind of extraordinary writer who captures heartbreak and longing with such startling precision and in such beautiful prose that you cannot help but be moved. Zoe and Jay, this family, will live in my memory for years to come.”
—Dolen Perkins Valdez, New York Times best-selling author of Wench, Balm and Take My Hand
“Ann Putnam’s I Will Leave You Never is a heartbreaking, gracefully rendered story of the quiet moments between and around the devastating ones and of the beautiful inner workings of the heart and minds battling their way along life’s toughest roads.”
—Laurie Frankel, New York Times best-selling author of This is How It Always Is and One Two Three
“Ann Putnam’s ironically titled I Will Leave You Never is a novel full of leave-takings that even Zoe—the appointed family worrier—could not anticipate over the course of a year that will strain but not break the bonds of her loving family.”
—Ladette Randolph, editor-in-chief of Ploughshares and author of Pushcart Prize winner Private Way
“Exquisitely written, this luminous novel takes you to the deep heart of a marriage. Threatened by illness and arson, a family with three children and too many puppies ultimately finds the strength to go forward with wit and insight.”
—Beverly Conner, author of Where Light is a Place, Falling From Grace
“Ominous and original, Ann Putnam’s novel is characteristically lyrical and precise. It is at its heart a love story, where characters facing loss uncover the generative quality of love.”
—Beth Kalikoff, author of Dying for a Blue Plate Special
“It’s no surprise that Ann Putnam’s most recent novel, I Will Leave You Never, features compelling characters in Zoe and Jay (among others) and lush, vivid writing. Fans of her short stories and her novel Cuban Quartermoon will, like me, rejoice that a new novel has appeared.”
—Hans Ostrom, author of Honoring Juanita
PRAISE FOR Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye
“Old age, death, and impermanence—it seems at first glance impossible to make a reader see these timeless and universal experiences with fresh eyes, but Ann Putnam’s luminous prose achieves that miracle and more, transforming pain, suffering, and loss into a literary gift of beauty and redemption.”
—Charles Johnson, author of National Book Award winner The Middle Passage
“Ann Putnam has given us a story of love and loss and survival that moves and instructs. . . . This is truly a work of love and devotion. A gift.”
—Annick Smith, author of In This We are Native, co-producer of A River Runs Through It
“From the beginning, Full Moon at Noontide seduced me. Then it sliced me open, slapped me in the face, made me cry, and enlarged my spirit. We stay with the story because it is beautifully written, and because it shows us that love—not—death can have the last word.”
—Thomas R. Cole, PhD, author of The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging
PRAISE FOR Cuban Quartermoon
“The lush imagery and cutting-edge prose of this narrative masterpiece makes for a compelling and transformative read.”
—Linda Patterson Miller, PhD, author of Letters from the Lost Generation
“In her rich and evocative novel, Ann Putnam renders the beauty, lure, strangeness, and intrigue of the island in sensuous detail through the eyes of a North American woman on a personal journey toward restoration and redemption.”
—Sandra Spanier PhD, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Penn State University
“In this magical novel, Ann Putnam takes us to a world of contradictions, loss, and longing, where the main character confronts the haunting ghosts of her past to finally find absolution, renewal, and hope. A must-read.”
—Loly Alcaide Ramirez, PhD, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at University of Washington and author
—Kirkus Reviews
“Ann Putnam’s glorious I Will Leave You Never is a story of threat and survival and the ties of love that bind us to one another. This novel resonates with the fragile and yet persistent threads of our living, threads that will vibrate inside you for a long time to come.”
—Lee Martin, author of Pulitzer finalist The Bright Forever
“Ann Putnam is the kind of extraordinary writer who captures heartbreak and longing with such startling precision and in such beautiful prose that you cannot help but be moved. Zoe and Jay, this family, will live in my memory for years to come.”
—Dolen Perkins Valdez, New York Times best-selling author of Wench, Balm and Take My Hand
“Ann Putnam’s I Will Leave You Never is a heartbreaking, gracefully rendered story of the quiet moments between and around the devastating ones and of the beautiful inner workings of the heart and minds battling their way along life’s toughest roads.”
—Laurie Frankel, New York Times best-selling author of This is How It Always Is and One Two Three
“Ann Putnam’s ironically titled I Will Leave You Never is a novel full of leave-takings that even Zoe—the appointed family worrier—could not anticipate over the course of a year that will strain but not break the bonds of her loving family.”
—Ladette Randolph, editor-in-chief of Ploughshares and author of Pushcart Prize winner Private Way
“Exquisitely written, this luminous novel takes you to the deep heart of a marriage. Threatened by illness and arson, a family with three children and too many puppies ultimately finds the strength to go forward with wit and insight.”
—Beverly Conner, author of Where Light is a Place, Falling From Grace
“Ominous and original, Ann Putnam’s novel is characteristically lyrical and precise. It is at its heart a love story, where characters facing loss uncover the generative quality of love.”
—Beth Kalikoff, author of Dying for a Blue Plate Special
“It’s no surprise that Ann Putnam’s most recent novel, I Will Leave You Never, features compelling characters in Zoe and Jay (among others) and lush, vivid writing. Fans of her short stories and her novel Cuban Quartermoon will, like me, rejoice that a new novel has appeared.”
—Hans Ostrom, author of Honoring Juanita
PRAISE FOR Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye
“Old age, death, and impermanence—it seems at first glance impossible to make a reader see these timeless and universal experiences with fresh eyes, but Ann Putnam’s luminous prose achieves that miracle and more, transforming pain, suffering, and loss into a literary gift of beauty and redemption.”
—Charles Johnson, author of National Book Award winner The Middle Passage
“Ann Putnam has given us a story of love and loss and survival that moves and instructs. . . . This is truly a work of love and devotion. A gift.”
—Annick Smith, author of In This We are Native, co-producer of A River Runs Through It
“From the beginning, Full Moon at Noontide seduced me. Then it sliced me open, slapped me in the face, made me cry, and enlarged my spirit. We stay with the story because it is beautifully written, and because it shows us that love—not—death can have the last word.”
—Thomas R. Cole, PhD, author of The Journey of Life: A Cultural History of Aging
PRAISE FOR Cuban Quartermoon
“The lush imagery and cutting-edge prose of this narrative masterpiece makes for a compelling and transformative read.”
—Linda Patterson Miller, PhD, author of Letters from the Lost Generation
“In her rich and evocative novel, Ann Putnam renders the beauty, lure, strangeness, and intrigue of the island in sensuous detail through the eyes of a North American woman on a personal journey toward restoration and redemption.”
—Sandra Spanier PhD, Edwin Erle Sparks Professor of English, Penn State University
“In this magical novel, Ann Putnam takes us to a world of contradictions, loss, and longing, where the main character confronts the haunting ghosts of her past to finally find absolution, renewal, and hope. A must-read.”
—Loly Alcaide Ramirez, PhD, Associate Professor of Hispanic Studies at University of Washington and author
About the Author
Ann Putnam is an internationally known Hemingway scholar who has made more than six trips to Cuba as part of the Ernest Hemingway International Colloquium. Her forthcoming novel, Cuban Quartermoon (June 2022), came, in part, from those trips, as well as a residency at Hedgebrook Writer’s Colony. She has published the memoir Full Moon at Noontide: A Daughter’s Last Goodbye(University of Iowa Press) and short stories in Nine by Three: Stories (Collins Press), among others. She holds a PhD from the University of Washington and has taught creative writing, gender studies, and American literature for many years. She has bred Alaskan Malamutes, which appear prominently in I Will Leave You Never. She currently lives in Gig Harbor, Washington.
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FTC Guidelines: In accordance with FTC guidelines regarding endorsements and testimonials for bloggers, I would like my readers to know that many of the books I review are provided to me for free by the publisher or author of the book in exchange for an honest review. If am compensated for any reviews on this site I will state that post has been sponsored.
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