By Accident

I thought By Accident was a lovely telling of a tragic situation, with such honesty and detail I felt the characters emotions myself. I thought it was realistic, honest, emotional and well written. I loved the ending, and the intermittent chapters told from a different point of view than the main character's first person point of view. I will look for other books by this author to read based on my experience with this book.

Laura Whit will lose her son at a young age, a loss that threatens to destroy her life moment by moment. She's almost beyond grief when the novel opens, having no feelings and running through the random thoughts that invade her mind all to frequently during a normal day! She's grieving and her sorrow is depicted without melodrama but no less poignantly for the tragedy this kind of grieving truly is! Her husband, Russ, is burying his grief in work and her 10 year-old daughter is combining her grief with normal pre-teen angst, a sense of dislike of everything and everybody. So it's hardly surprising when Laura falls into the beginning of a relationship with a tree surgeon. But is he a lover or is she a mother to him, a replacement for her son? And what does it mean how quickly her daughter takes to him like a duck to water? Is sex solace for indescribable pain - does it make one feel alive through the deadness of grief? What does grief do to a couple? And how will another loss change the equation for Laura? Grief can crush one's being and the effort to live beyond loss is for a time crippling and absolutely devastating. But the author, Susan Kelly, knows exactly where and when to insert the humor and gutsy side of life so vital for healing and recovery, recovery to continue living with meaningfully real relationships, not substitutes, that celebrate the life mourned and lost. By Accident is a very powerful book about a very cruel, very devastating reality; it is all the more richer for the gracious point of view Susan Kelly presents in Laura Whit and those part of this forever changed world! A poignant, precious story, Ms. Kelly! Reviewed by Viviane Crystal on May 27, 2010

Susan Kelly has done it again. The author creates sympathetic characters in situations that are so real that we as readers can't help but relate. Laura is a wife and mother who loses her son Whit just after he graduates from highschool in a car accident on the way to the beach. I'm not spoiling anything, you learn this right away. It's every mother's worst nightmare. Laura has to find a way to keep going for her younger daughter and to connect somehow with the people in her life, even her husband. All she really wants to do is curl up and ignore the world. When a young man moves in next door, Laura starts to become more engaged in life again. Their relationship morphs as does the relationship she has with her husband and her long-time best friend. I wanted to keep reading about Laura and her Greensboro, NC neighborhood even after the last page.