MARIAN: All This Silence We Never Break (The Motherline Saga)

MARIAN follows the dual story lines of vibrant 66-year-old bed & breakfast owner Kathryn Wallace and her mother, Marian Hayward, a woman with a black spot of scandal and mystery staining her untimely death at age 27. In 2019, Kathryn doesn’t remember her mother, instead, she clings to the memory of her much beloved father, who held her as the favored child. But when her queer and anxious daughter, Ruby, takes an online DNA test to learn more about her heritage, Kathryn’s world begins to crack and crumble around her, releasing decades of secrets and lies.Back in 1947, untamed and free-thinking Marian Hayward is seventeen, pregnant, and abandoned by her secret lover. Fearful of her strict mother’s rejection, Marian accepts an unorthodox proposal from a dear family friend, William Gellert. But with secrecy a matter of survival, their perfect arrangement soon fractures under the weight of deception, manipulation, and longing, particularly when Marian’s lover, poetic and war-ruined Benjamin Kaspar, returns to make right his terrible mistake.More than seventy years later, Ruby battles her own parenthood demons and is determined to redeem Kathryn’s mother, heal wounds passed down the maternal line, and unravel a long-kept family secret…whether Kathryn is ready to face it or not. Read more