Penitence is a sweeping debut novel that follows the lives of two estranged families in rural Colorado after an unimaginable tragedy forces them back together.

When their thirteen-year-old daughter Nora kills her terminally ill brother, Angie and David Sheehan struggle to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives. They turn to small-town lawyer Martine Dumont for help, but Martine isn’t just legal counsel—she’s also the mother of Angie’s ill-fated first love, Julian, a successful criminal defense attorney. Martine promptly draws him into the legal battle against an overreaching district attorney determined to try Nora as an adult. As the families grapple with the lasting strain of blame and the complexities of an often unfair criminal justice system, Julian and Angie must confront their own culpability in a long-ago accident and the guilt they still carry over how their prior life together in New York City ended.

For fans of Ann Patchett and Celeste Ng, Penitence is a timely story of hope in the face of blame and remorse. It’s both an addictive work and a literary reflection on the boundaries of forgiveness that compels listeners to consider whether each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.