Recovering from unthinkable violence, Cornelia Brown is further pushed into darkness when she gets word of her mother, Eleanor's accident. After returning to her childhood home in Virginia to help her mom recover, Cornelia vows to "bring her the Northern Lights" while embarking on a mission to piece together the lost years of her mother's life.

SHINE is a lyrical book of lost and found family that covers my favorite topics, mother-daughter relationships and sibling dynamics. Alternating between two timelines—Cornelia's present-day story and Eleanor's narrative in the 1960s—we see how history repeats itself and the pervasiveness of humanity searching for belonging.

Santos' writing took me a while to get used to, and I could see the rhythmic styles in poems in her story. Nonetheless, once I got to 1/3 of the book, I was absorbed and invested in following Cornelia's & Eleanor's journey of finding themselves. I finished SHINE in two sittings and walked away bursting with love and gratitude from this heartfelt story.

Books that humanize parents always have a special place in my heart, and Santos explores this theme beautifully in SHINE. She asks the readers to proceed with care and compassion when excavating our parents' pasts, especially the history of grief and loss. It's often odd to think that my parents have a life before me, and there are pasts that they'd rather not talk about. It's a pleasure seeing this topic of how people process trauma & show love differently in SHINE.

For fans of BLACK CAKE (Charmaine Wilkerson), WATCH US SHINE is the perfect next read for you!

Thank you to BiblioLifestyle & William Morrow for the gifted copy