Flood: A Novel

A sparkling debut set in Mark Twain´s boyhood town, Flood is a story of what it means to be lost . . . and found. Laura Brooks fled her hometown of Hannibal, Missouri, ten years ago after a historic flood and personal heartbreak. Now she´s returned unannounced, and her family and friends don´t know what to make of it. She says she´s just home for a brief visit and her high-school reunion, but she´s carrying too much luggage for that: literal and metaphorical. Soon Laura is embroiled in small-town affairs -- the contentious divorce of her rowdy best friend Rose; the campaign of her twelve-year-old godson, Bobby, to become the town´s official Tom Sawyer; and the renewed interest of the man Laura once thought she´d marry, Sammy McGuire. Leaving town when she was eighteen had been Laura´s only option. She feared a stifling existence in a town ruled by its past, its mythological devotion to Mark Twain, and the economic and racial divide that runs as deep as the Mississippi River. She can´t forget that fateful Fourth of July when the levees broke or the decisions that still haunt her. Now as the Mississippi rises again, a deep wound threatens to reopen, and Laura must decide if running away once more might be the best way to save herself.