When Abby’s cherished best friend, Stella Rose, is dying from cancer, she asks that Abby assume custody of her teenage daughter. Although Abby has no experience with children, she says yes. Because that’s what best friends do. They say yes. This way, Olivia can remain in her home and finish high school in Vermont, rather than face the daunting challenge of moving out-of-state to live with her father. But after Stella dies and Abby relocates, Olivia becomes secretive and unpredictable. Suddenly Abby is grappling with more than raising a grieving teenager. She realizes she didn’t know Stella as well as she thought, and she discovers just how far she will go to save the most precious thing in her life.
STELLA ROSE is a beautiful novel about how powerful women’s friendships can be, what lifelines they can become. It’s also a novel about love—among friends, between lovers, and within families. It’s a tear jerker, a page turner, and a heartbreaking reminder to live life to the fullest, now.
TAMMY FLANDERS HETRICK has been telling stories all her life, refining her skills at age ten through marathon tag-team story-telling with her best friend, honing her craft through decades of business writing, and ultimately finding joy in extracurricular creative writing. She has published short stories in Your Teen Magazine, Blue Ocean Institute’s Sea Stories, and Route 7 Literary Journal.
It’s no surprise Tammy’s first novel, STELLA ROSE, features enduring friendships among strong women. She has spent much of her personal life and career helping women see their potential. In 2009 she was recognized with the Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition’s Pioneering Woman Award for coaching and mentoring women in the work place.
Her passion for strong relationships among women runs through STELLA ROSE and led to the creation of an online community where women can talk about the impact of friendship in their lives – InFriendship.com – launching in February 2015.
Tammy is a director at Keurig Green Mountain in Vermont, where she lives with her husband of thirty years, their two cats, and a beagle/pitbull mix. Though Tammy loves her two grown children to distraction, she appreciates the amenities of an empty nest.
My Thoughts
"Finally. The pain, the anguish and the struggle are over.
Well, your pain, anguish and struggle are over. Me? I'm looking over a cliff, and pain, anguish, and struggle roil below amid jagged rocks of grief.
And you know how I hate heights."
Stella Rose starts with the above paragraphs. So sad, but that is what happens when your best friend dies of cancer at such a young age, leaving behind a teenage daughter. Stella Rose has asked that Abby raise her daughter Olivia. Abby is not sure she is up to the task, she misses her friend terribly as does Olivia. Stella Rose was a very organized woman, planned everything in her last year. What she did was pretty cool though, she prepared a years worth of monthly little gifts and letters for Abby and Olivia to open up together. Each present and letter has a meaning behind it. I think that is a pretty interesting idea, I think it helps Abby and Olivia handle the loss and grief. It doesn't make it any easier of course, but they are able to cope better.
Life does go on for the two of them, there are struggles of course but it is not easy taking over the care of a child that is not your own and a teenager at that. Teenagers can definitely be a handful, and Abby and Olivia grow close in spite of differences and disagreements. Abby has inner dialogues with Stella Rose and through these the reader learns what kind of person Stella Rose was and how she was able to prepare Abby for what was to come.
Abby starts dating and actually has two men vying for her, she struggles with her feelings for each man, Olivia spends a lot time with her friends and time goes on for the two of them and soon the year is over. Are they done grieving? Probably not but they have learned that life does go on and you need to focus on what is important. Stella Rose was a very wise woman.
When I first started reading the book, because it started out at the very beginning of the grief process, I thought it was going to be kind of maudlin, but it was not. I found myself liking both characters a lot. Hoping through the whole book that they would be able to come in touch with their feelings and emotions. They both find that letting go is something that they can do and Stella Rose will always be with them both. I really loved this book. At times a tear jerker but uplifting at the same time. A definite must read!
I received a copy of the book for review and I was not monetarily compensated for said review.
K.C. Stewart is the self published author of the Hailey Holloway series and most recently, the Adirondack Pack series. All her life she had fantasized and day dreamed on a regular basis but it wasn’t until she began writing flash fiction and that she made those fantasies a reality. Now she has graduated to novels but still dabbles in the occasional flash fiction and short story. Because of her love for reading and the written word, K.C. is currently continuing her education at Clarion University for Library Science. When she isn’t taking photographs, studying or writing, she is supporting a very real gummy bear habit. Currently, she lives with her boyfriend, german shepherd and cats in central Pennsylvania.
