How Not to Drown

Amelia MacQueen has lost her favorite son, Gavin, to a suspicious drowning, for which her daughter-in-law has been convicted, and she’s been awarded temporary custody of her twelve-year-old daughter, Heaven, who she reluctantly takes in. The daughter of drug addicts, who has long been left to her own devices, Heaven does not appreciate her grandmother’s constant critical ministrations, and the pair quickly butt heads. She instead bonds with Uncle Daniel, Amelia's agoraphobic older son who never leaves his bedroom. Through the wall between their rooms, Daniel spins Celtic tales for Heaven from the Isle of Skye, where the family's ancestors lived. Heaven decides that the best way to deal with bullying at school is to become a siren from one of those stories. She sings drowning songs in the swim-team pool, luring mean girl Bethany Harrison under at the deep end. Then, Amelia comes home one day to find her granddaughter serving Oreos to the cops who picked her up for snaking junk food from the neighborhood. As much as Amelia loved her son, Heaven is the last thing she would have asked for, but when Heaven goes missing during a dangerous storm one night, Amelia is forced to reexamine her outlook on family. In vivid prose, Jaimee Wriston tells a wry multi-generational tale of redemption, exploring the bonds that make and break a family and the transformative power of storytelling.