What We Burned

When their mother Margaret dies suddenly, three estranged sisters return to the family farmhouse in rural Tennessee with only fourteen days to clean it out and close the estate. What they expect is dusty boxes and old memories. What they find is a locked door - and behind it, fifteen journals that rewrite everything they thought they knew about the woman who raised them. Before she was "Mama, " Margaret Halloran was a nineteen-year-old runaway who fell wildly in love, built a life in New York City, and survived a loss so devastating it nearly broke her.
As Avery, Jo, and Delia read her private writings together in the house where they grew up, they uncover a half-sister they never knew existed, a father who wasn't their father, and the quiet courage it took their mother to choose the life they lived. Over fourteen raw, laughter-filled, tear-soaked days, the sisters finally see their mother - not as the woman they thought they knew, but as the woman she truly was.
A luminous novel about the stories we inherit, the truths we hide from our children, and the unbreakable bond between sisters.