When Angel sets fire to her childhood home, it isn't the end--it's the beginning. Left with nothing but a few memories in her pocket, Angel escapes into the fields of tobacco, the only place she has ever felt safe. Hidden by those green-gold leaves, she sets her eyes on the mountains and believes someone waits for her there. Angel will do whatever she has to until she finds her. She longs to empty her pockets, hand over the answers to what became of her, and whisper, This is my story.

As Angel journeys toward the mountains, Hannah is struggling to tell her own story. The daughter of missionaries who follow the rules of a small and strict religious sect, modesty is prized above all else. Wearing floor length polyester skirts, and never cutting her hair, Hannah is forced to live a separate life from her peers. Until the summer her family moves to James Island, South Carolina. Slowly, Hannah begins to escape the confines of her strict upbringing, and soon makes a choice that will forever change the course of her life. As these two women's paths connect, Hannah's past will prove to mean everything to Angel's future.

"Burning down Black Snake trailer was easy. The hard thing was walking away, when what I wanted most was to watch it die... "

When Angel sets fire to her childhood home, it isn't the end--it's the beginning. Left with nothing but a few memories in her pocket, Angel escapes into the fields of tobacco, the only place she has ever felt safe. Hidden by those green-gold leaves, she sets her eyes on the mountains and believes someone waits for her there. Angel will do whatever she has to until she finds her. She longs to empty her pockets, hand over the answers to what became of her, and whisper, This is my story.

As Angel journeys toward the mountains, Hannah is struggling to tell her own story. The daughter of missionaries who follow the rules of a small and strict religious sect, modesty is prized above all else. Wearing floor length polyester skirts, and never cutting her hair, Hannah is forced to live a separate life from her peers. Until the summer her family moves to James Island, South Carolina. Slowly, Hannah begins to escape the confines of her strict upbringing, and soon makes a choice that will forever change the course of her life.

As these two women's paths connect, Hannah's past will prove to mean everything to Angel's future.

Rachel Keener is the author of The Killing Tree. She lives in the Winston-Salem area of North Carolina with her husband and two sons. You can visit her Web site at www.rachelkeener.com.

Keener's uneven second novel (after The Killing Tree) is the soapy story of Hannah, raised by “holy rollers,” and the illegitimate daughter she is forced to abandon. When Hannah is a teenager, her parents move her and her adopted sister to James Island, S.C., where Hannah relishes her one freedom—exploring the island on the bike her father gives her. One day, while out on a ride, she sees a help-wanted sign for a cleaning lady at a motel. There, she meets the handsome Sam, a local football hero, but he's predictably full of empty promises and leaves Hannah pregnant and heartbroken, her pain compounded by her mother forcing her to give the baby away. Her daughter, Angel, faces torments of her own: raised in a broken home that she eventually torches, Angel is as lost as her mother. Though Keener tries hard to dig deep into her two protagonists as they meander toward reunion, Hannah and Angel never escape their clichéd circumstances. Still, like any cheesy drama, it will be difficult to put down by some. (Mar.) Copyright 2010 Reed Business Information.

"In The Memory Thief, Rachel Keener has done a wonderful job of shadowing Hannah's story onto Angel's and vice-versa, until they converge into one. The Memory Thief is truly a luminous work of hope and ultimate redemption."

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