{"id":9508,"date":"2022-02-22T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9508"},"modified":"2022-02-21T21:37:18","modified_gmt":"2022-02-22T02:37:18","slug":"the-ones-we-keep","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9508","title":{"rendered":"The Ones We Keep"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Bobbie Jean Huff\u2019s powerful new domestic drama, The Ones We Keep<\/em>, is a real standout. It\u2019s quite a testament for a debut author\u2019s novel to be compared to the works of Elizabeth Strout and Diane Chamberlain! I enjoyed it thoroughly, as much for the quality of the writing as the fully developed and compelling characters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the story begins, New Jerseyans Olivia and Harry Somerville and their three young boys are vacationing at a Vermont lake. Olivia, returning from a walk, sees a police car leaving the resort, and two teenagers she encounters on the trail tell her a boy from New Jersey has drowned. All Olivia can think to do is run. If she gets away, if she hides, if she cuts off communication with her family and friends, she will never know which of her boys is lost. I have three sons<\/em>, becomes her mantra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once she makes this break from what would have been her reality, it\u2019s somehow better to keep that door firmly closed than to go back and face her loss. The story describes the accommodations she must make as she builds a new life, how Henry and the two remaining boys cope with her absence, how time moves on. Olivia\u2019s choice may not be one most of us would make, but it is the choice she believes she has to make, in order to keep all her sons alive in her mind and for her own survival.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Bobbie Jean Huff and I are acquainted, having taken some of the same writing workshops together, and I couldn\u2019t be more delighted that this novel turned out so beautifully!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bobbie Jean Huff\u2019s powerful new domestic drama, The Ones We Keep, is a real standout. It\u2019s quite a testament for a debut author\u2019s novel to be compared to the works of Elizabeth Strout and Diane Chamberlain! I enjoyed it thoroughly, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":" Olivia is a woman with secrets who has made unimaginably difficult choices. Can she ever reclaim any of the life she gave up?","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[366,40,126,359],"tags":[1956,1957],"class_list":["post-9508","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-drama","category-fiction","category-reading-2","category-review","tag-bobbie-jean-huff","tag-the-ones-we-keep"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2tm","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9508"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9510,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9508\/revisions\/9510"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}