Mother's Nature

by Jana Krause

Raven Thomas could never explain the inspiration behind her nightmarish drawings. With her gallery debut a few months away she struggles to define her dark muse, afraid to delve into the place where she knows the answers lie. When her senile grandmother becomes ill, Raven returns to the town she left years ago to escape the guilt of her twin sister’s illness and death. She struggles to care for her grandmother and work on her collection while hounded and belittled by her mother, a hypochondriac who continues to mourn the daughter she lost. Haunted by her tragic past and a truth she can’t name, Raven searches for answers. She finds them hidden in a box of her grandmother’s old gardening journals. Thrown into a whirlwind of doubt about her childhood, Raven dives into her art for escape. But with each new drawing she is plunged deep into the past where she is forced to face the truth about her sister, mother, grandmother, and herself. A truth more horrible than she ever thought possible.Readers who enjoy intricate, sometimes sinister family dynamics will love Mother’s Nature, a story that interlaces the lives of three generations of women tormented by their insecurities and struggling to conquer their fears, each playing a part in the events surrounding one girl’s death.

348 pages, Paperback

First published March 14, 2011

About the author

Jana was born in Vermont and spent most of her childhood in Maine.

She and her husband raised their family in Sturbridge, Massachusetts and now live in Boston.