Grave of God's Daughter Book

A woman is faced with the past she's tried to put behind her only to find that what transpired in her childhood has never been further away than her own shadow.

The year is 1941. Rooted in the lonely outreaches of the Allegheny Mountains lies the town of Hyde Bend. Its heart: a steel mill; its bones: the tight community of Polish immigrants who inhabit it; and its blood: their fierce Catholic faith. But buried in the town's soul is a dangerous secret surrounding the death of a revered priest.

Upon returning to Hyde Bend, a young woman accidentally uncovers the truth behind this crime, which leads to a second murder. The town quickly erupts in fear and finger pointing. The girl is forced to unravel the now-intertwined mysteries and discovers her own family at the center. Now she must confront all she holds sacred if she is to save her family and herself in this story of lost innocence, transgression, faith, and forgiveness.

Publishers Weekly

A young girl uncovers dark family secrets in a haunting, evocative first novel by storywriter Block (Destination Known). In 1941, Hyde Bend is a tiny town on a sharp turn in the Allegheny River; its big employers are a steel mill and a pesticide plant, and virtually all its inhabitants are Polish Catholics. Dressing as a boy, Block's young, unnamed narrator delivers meat for the town butcher (she doesn't want anyone to recognize her) in order to raise enough money to buy back the Black Madonna, a family painting that's now gathering dust at the local pawn shop. The mystery of the painting is revealed through Block's detailed portrayal of the troubled relationship between the girl's cold mill worker father and her desperate, beautiful mother, both of whom do their best to avoid one another while raising the narrator and her younger brother, Martin. As a delivery "boy," the girl has a window into the town's other households, which proves especially useful when rumors start circulating about the murder of the town's tyrannical matriarch, Swatka Pani. Block deftly balances the subsequent murder mystery with a rich family and community portrait, revealing a treacherous, insular world that the narrator and her brother must constantly negotiate. As Block's narrator makes her way through the maze of secrets linking her mother and Swatka Pani, she also learns more about her family's tortured dynamic. Block's fluid prose makes the combination especially intoxicating, and her ability to uncover the shadowy, dangerous heart of a wartime mill town is just as impressive. Agent, Jonathan Pecarsky at the William Morris Agency. (Apr.) Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.