The Burning Light of Two Stars
A Mother-Daughter Story
by Laura Davis
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Pub Date Nov 09 2021 | Archive Date Oct 29 2021
Girl Friday Productions | Girl Friday Books
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Description
"Caregiving an elderly parent, especially against the backdrop of a difficult shared past, can be a bruising spiritual ordeal. We who must travel this territory don't need any more sentimental narratives about it. What we do need is the healing medicine of truth-telling, and Laura Davis brilliantly and generously gives it to us. I literally could not put this book down." —Katy Butler, bestselling author of Knocking on Heaven's Door and The Art of Dying Well
This riveting memoir by Laura Davis, the author of The Courage to Heal, examines the endurance of mother-daughter love, how memory protects and betrays us, and the determination it takes to fulfill a promise when ghosts from the past come knocking.
When she published The Courage to Heal in 1988, Laura Davis helped more than a million women work through the trauma of childhood sexual abuse. But her decision to go public with her grandfather’s incest deepened an already painful estrangement with her mother, Temme.
Over the next twenty years, from a safe distance of three thousand miles, Laura and Temme reconciled their volatile relationship and believed that their difficult past was behind them. But when Temme moves across the country to entrust her daughter with the rest of her life, she brings a faltering mind, a fierce need for independence, and the seeds of a second war between them. As the stresses of caregiving rekindle Laura’s rage over past betrayals, they threaten her intention to finally love her mother “without reservation.” Will she learn what it means to be truly openhearted before it’s too late?
Advance Praise
"When Ellen Bass and Laura Davis published The Courage to Heal, it emboldened a generation of survivors of sexual abuse and incest, likely contributing to the courageous voices for many who are part of today's MeToo and TimesUp movements. In The Burning Light of Two Stars, Davis allows us to know the person behind those pages, and the story behind that story. Nuanced, raw, and candid, this memoir does not designate white hat/black hat characters. Instead, it provides a topographical map through the complex landscape of the mother/daughter relationship at the heart of the story, with characters both noble and deeply flawed on both sides of the equation. This masterful heart-filling book is deeply moving and wise. I'm so grateful to have read it." --Betsy Graziani Fasbinder, author of Filling Her Shoes
Marketing Plan
Prepublication buzz campaign
Digital galley distribution on Edelweiss and NetGalley
Trade advertising
Target outreach to blogs and websites
Social media influencer campaign
Targeted online advertising
Listing and pricing promotions run through GFB’s Aerio store
Social media posts to support pre-order, book launch, and book reviews
Book launch coordinated with Bookshop Santa Cruz
Author will incorporate the book as part of her future writing workshops
Promotion to author’s 6k social media followers and 10k email list subscribers
Available Editions
| EDITION | Other Format |
| ISBN | 9781954854161 |
| PRICE | $17.95 (USD) |
| PAGES | 368 |
Links
Featured Reviews
Amy F, Reviewer
***Thanks to NetGalley for providing me a complimentary copy of THE BURNING LIGHT OF TWO STARS by Laura Davis in exchange for my honest review.***
*Disclaimer #2 Laura Davis is a hero of mine. Her first book, THE COURAGE TO HEAL about recovery from sexual abuse saved my life, literally and figuratively. Our personal lives share many similarities from sexual abuse to breast cancer to Jewish grandparents. I don’t know her personally and despite my admiration for her, I believe my review to be objective.
I’m not a big memoir reader, particularly of someone whose life is so similar to mine in many ways, but wanted to read Davis’s as I followed her publishing journey on Facebook. Honestly, I wasn’t sure I’d be interested as mothers aren’t my favorite topic and I just found out my estranged father died last month. I was approved for the ARC of THE BURNING LIGHT OF TWO STARS the day before my move to an over 55 community so I couldn’t begin for a few days and I sat down to read a chapter in between unpacking. Hours later, buckets of tears shed and no boxes unpacked, I finished.
THE BURNING LIGHT OF TWO STARS begins in utero with Laura’s identical twin Vickie who lived only a day. From start to finish I cycled through a myriad of emotions from sentimental longing to joy to sadness to wanting to punch her brother in the face (which *is* a feeling to me and I’ll die on that sword).
Davis’s writing is alive, active, personable, passionate and gritty, though never in a manner that feels over-written or indulgent. She’s clearly someone who knows herself, warts and all, and is comfortable sharing her imperfections. The steady pacing did have some detail that I wanted to skim, like details about her brother’s new age journey (not enough to detract from my enjoyment or to drop to 4.5 stars because I should be unpacking and I’m highly distractible right now).
THE BURNING LIGHT OF TWO STARS is the memoir I didn’t know I needed to read (for even more personal reasons than I wrote). The audience for this book is as diverse as the topics covered, family, abuse, estrangement, LGBT, caregiving to name a few.
Janilyn K, Reviewer
Davis writes an honest telling of her relationship with her mother, fraught with many pitfalls. I had much empathy as I read all the care that fell on her and her partner as her mother aged. How she has to manage her mother’s care, deal,with her mother’s issues, while her brother shirked his responsibilities. Anyone who faces elder care or who has experienced it will have loads of sympathy. The most difficult part of the book, for me was reading about and her brother and her literally watching their mother be cremated. I thought that was macabre. It’s an interesting book.
Readers who liked this book also liked:
Jodi Picoult; Jennifer Finney Boylan
General Fiction (Adult), Literary Fiction, Women's Fiction
