Where I Cant Follow, Ashley Blooms
Where I Cant Follow, Ashley Blooms
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

Where I Can't Follow
A Novel

Author: Ashley Blooms

Narrator: Julia Atwood

Unabridged: 8 hr 5 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/16/2022


Synopsis

Walk through the door and leave all your problems behind … but you don’t know what’s on the other side. And once you leave, you’ll never come back. Will you go through?Maren Walker told herself she wouldn’t need to sell pills for long, that it was only means to an end. But that end seems to be stretching as far away as the other side of Blackdamp County, Kentucky. There’s always another bill for Granny’s doctor, another problem with the car, another reason she’s getting nowhere.She dreams of walking through her little door to leave it all behind. The doors have appeared to the people in her mountain town for as long as anyone can remember, though no one knows where they lead. All anyone knows is that if you go, you’ll never come back.Maren’s mother left through her door when Maren was nine, and her shadow has followed Maren ever since. When she faces the possibility of escaping her struggles for good, Maren must choose just what kind of future she wants to build.From critically acclaimed author Ashley Blooms, Where I Can’t Follow explores the forces that hold people in place, and how they adapt, survive, and struggle to love a place that doesn’t always love them back.

About Ashley Blooms

Ashley Blooms has published short fiction in The Year’s Best Dark Fantasy & Horror, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Strange Horizons, and Shimmer, among others, and her essay “Fire in My Bones” appeared in the Oxford American. Ashley is a graduate of the Clarion Writer’s Workshop and the Tin House Winter Workshop and received her MFA as a John and Renee Grisham Fellow from the University of Mississippi. She was raised in Cutshin, Kentucky, and now lives in Berea, Kentucky.

About Julia Atwood

Julia Atwood is an actor and audiobook narrator who earned her bachelor's degree in classics and psychology from Wheaton College. She went on to attend the Moscow Art Theater’s Stanislavsky Summer School and graduated from Brown University with her master's degree in acting. She is currently based in New York City.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jennifer ~ TarHeelReader on April 07, 2022

About the book: “From critically acclaimed author Ashley Blooms, Where I Can't Follow explores the forces that hold people in place, and how they adapt, survive, and struggle to love a place that doesn’t always love them back.” Maren starts selling pills but only short-term. Just to get her past the......more

Goodreads review by Najeefa on April 13, 2022

Thanks to the publisher - SOURCEBOOKS Landmark for providing ARC in exchange for an honest review via NetGalley. 3/5 stars 'You can't be careful when you know you're doing something wrong'. Where I Can't Follow is set in Blackdamp, which is associated with this story of individuals of the county h......more

Goodreads review by Kim Michele on February 05, 2022

Where I Can't Follow is a powerful and unflinching look into emotion, place and its people, and what binds you even when not fully belonging. Ashley Blooms has written a haunting testament to the survival of self and family in a struggling, desperate Appalachian community.......more

Goodreads review by Kelly on September 13, 2021

**Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing a digital review copy** No other author I've read has been able to write with the duality of light/dark themes with such painstaking, beautiful prose the way Ashley Blooms does with her work. "Where I Can't Follow" is a worthy follow-up to her 202......more

Goodreads review by Sam on December 12, 2021

I loved the premise of this story. The descriptions were rich and beautiful, which sucked me right in. Ashley Blooms definitely has a special way with words that brought the little doors to life. While I enjoyed the book, I was left wanting a bit more from each of the characters. I love a character-......more


Quotes

“This fantastically real, absorbing novel explores what it would feel like to have an escape hatch from the hardships of life and the agonizing decision whether to leave everyone you love behind.” Good Housekeeping

“Bloom does a very deft job of world building and creating characters the reader becomes invested in.” Booklist

“Haunting and hopeful…a magic so vivid it feels more like a memory than a work of fiction." Alix E. Harrow, author of The Once and Future Witch