Two Rivers

Book excerpt: Tammy Greenwood's haunting novel is the beautifully evoked story of a good man who has done a terrible thing, the events leading up to it, and the demons born from it. It is at once a love story set against the backdrop of the Vietnam War and civil rights movement and an examination of the power of grief and the importance of forgiveness. In Two Rivers, Vermont, Harper Montgomery is living a life overshadowed by grief and guilt. Since the death of his wife Betsy, Harper has narrowed his world to working at the local railroad and raising his daughter Shelly the best way he knows how. Still wracked with sorrow over the loss of his life-long love and plagued by his role in a brutal, long-ago crime, he wants only to make amends for his past mistakes. Then one fall day, a train derails in Two Rivers, and amid the wreckage Harper finds an unexpected chance for atonement. One of the survivors, a pregnant fifteen-year-old girl with mismatched eyes and skin the color of blackberries, needs a place to stay. Though filled with misgivings, Harper offers to take Maggie in. But it isn't long before he begins to suspect that Maggie's appearance in Two Rivers is not the simple case of happenstance it first appeared to be. "This novel is a sensitive and suspenseful portrayal of family and the ties that bind." --Lee Martin, author of The Bright Forever and River of Heaven "Greenwood is a writer of subtle strength, evoking small-town life beautifully while spreading out the map of Harper's life, finding light in the darkest of stories." --Publishers Weekly