This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by
Goddess Fish Promotions. Sharon Overend
will be awarding a $20 Amazon/BN gift card to a randomly drawn winner. Click on the
tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
A haunting, lyrical exploration of family, silence and the secrets we inherit.
Years of avoidance and blame have left the McLaughlin clan fractured and ill-equipped
to face the critical illness of one of their own. When long buried memories of a
neighborhood child’s death while in their care resurface the family truly begin to
unravel.
Told in alternating voices, Look Over Your Shoulder, reveals how secrets ripple through
generations, and how healing begins when someone finally dares to speak the
truth.
Read an Excerpt
ANNE
I slipped away. In slow motion, I raised one foot after the other, one step at a time,
upstairs. My limbs now disconnected from my body, my head bobbing in a black fog, I
drifted across the hall and toward my bedroom. I lay on top of the covers but dragged a
throw over my hip.
The buzz of distant conversations crawled into the room, and my window shook each
time the front door opened or closed. Knuckles rapped, an empty hanger slapped
against the door panel, the buzz amplified, feet shuffled forward, a presence lingered, a
hand touched my arm, a voice whispered.
“Mom.”
I said nothing until her feet shuffled back toward the door.
“I’m sorry,” I sighed into the pillow seconds before the hanger again rattled, and the hum
of voices roared back into the room. I wasn’t sure whether I’d wanted her to hear me or
not.
“For what?” She had heard.
“For resenting you.”
The weighty creak of floorboards, a car engine idling, a woman’s laughter, a child’s
shriek, a toilet flush.
“You’re tired,” Marilyn said, now close enough to touch me. “Sleep.”
“You scare me,” I said, still telling the pillow, not her. “Your strength and your capacity for
forgiveness are things I’ve never experienced before. But I have to know. Have you ever
forgotten?” Shame had stalked me my whole life, a shadow dancing across my
peripheral vision, now fully in view.
“We’ll talk in the morning.” She lifted the fringed edge of the blanket, pulled it over my
shoulder, and tucked it beneath my chin. A blue spark of static electricity sprang
between her fingers and my face.
About the Author:
SHARON OVEREND, is an award-winning author whose fiction, creative non-fiction and
poetry has appeared in the Canadian, American and British literary journals and
anthologies including Antigonish Review, Avalon, Descant, Grain, Matter of Time, Spirit
of the Hills, Surfacing, Wild Words, Word Weaver, UK’s Dream Catcher, CafeLit, The
Best of CafeLit and A Coup of Owls.
Sharon and her husband live on a 156- rural acre property in Ontario, Canada where
she has found inspiration for many of her projects.
Website:
http://www.sharonoverend.blogTwitter:
http://www.twitter.com/sharonoverend
Instagram:
http://www.Instagram.com/sharo
noverend3971
Bluesky:
http://www.Sharonoverend77.bsky.soci
al
Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/LOOK-OVER-
SHOULDER-Sharon-Overend-ebook/dp/B0FR2P6SWY/ref=sr_1_1
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