Praise for Sherry’s newest novel, Shadows Hold Their Breath:

Named as one of the Best Indie Books for August (2022) by Kirkus Reviews.

To Robinson’s credit, the ending is not the “Kumbaya” outcome some readers might hope for. The characters are well drawn, as are the tight community of Gatlinburg and the beautiful surrounding countryside. The story is punctuated by letters Beth sent back to Kat from Vietnam. Does Kat regret that she is not the brave spirit that Beth was? Has she always been living the wrong life? In truth, we are never quite clear about what caused her to leave home. This is a story about grabbing what happiness one can while also living with pain that may never really go away. That is what makes it an honest novel for grown-ups.

An impressive and thoughtful exploration of the mistakes good people make.

KIRKUS REVIEWS (Starred review)

Like [Henrik] Ibsen’s A Doll’s House and [Kate] Chopin’s The Awakening, Shadows Hold their Breath explores one woman’s decision to leave her husband and children rather than crumble under the weight of patriarchal roles. Kat is also burdened by grief and an unspoken love that perhaps even in her nascent self-awareness is still taboo. The novel offers no easy answers, no pure absolution, just Kat’s honest quest to accept—and live—her truth.

MARIE MANILLA, author of The Patron Saint of Ugly

Shadows Hold Their Breath, set in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, is a complicated story about motherhood, grief, and self-discovery. Kat is a troubled, empathetic character searching for independence and understanding. Writing in spare, descriptive prose, Robinson asks difficult and important questions about responsibility and independence without offering facile answers.  
CARTER SICKELS, author of The Prettiest Star

Shadows Hold Their Breath dispels myths of maternal negligence and malice. Robinson demonstrates that there are no heroes or villains in most families, only the choices of a particular season and the reverberating consequences. The questions that haunt Kat are the questions that defined a generation of women. Set in the wake of the Vietnam War, against the backdrop of social unrest and shifting patriarchy, this novel of identity will leave you rooting for a character whose choices could easily be condemned. Like the wet clay she works on her pottery wheel, Kat turns in on herself again and again, rising into a vessel strong enough to hold all her grief, her guilt, and her hope. Sherry Robinson’s novel is a beautiful exercise in mercy.

JULIE HENSLEY, author of Landfall: A Ring of Stories

Books are available through Shadlelandhouse Modern Press, Amazon, or anywhere books are sold.