Stella Rose: A Novel

by Tammy Flanders Hetrick

Overview

Upon Stella Rose’s death, her best friend, Abby, moves to rural Vermont to take care of her sixteen-year-old daughter, Olivia. But Abby struggles to connect with Olivia and she soon finds guardianship of a headstrong teenager daunting beyond her wildest misgivings. Despite her best efforts, and the help of friends old and new, she is unable to keep Olivia from self-destruction. As Abby’s journey unfolds, she grapples with raising a grieving teenager, realizes she didn’t know Stella as well as she thought, and discovers just how far she will go to save the most precious thing in her life.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781631529214
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	04/21/2015
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.56(w) x 8.46(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Tammy Flanders Hetrick has been telling stories all her life, refining her skills at age ten through marathon tag-team storytelling 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. In 2009 she was recognized with the Outdoor Industries Women’s Coalition’s Pioneering Woman Award for coaching and mentoring women in the workplace. Hetrick lives in Vermont with her husband of thirty years, their two cats, and a beagle/miniature bull mix.

Editorial Reviews

Tammy Flanders Hetrick's novel Stella Rose proves to the reader that Love is not just stronger than Death, but stranger. Succumbing to illness, a brilliant woman bequeaths her teenager daughter, their home, and a series of instructions for life while grieving, to her best friend. Hetrick deftly studies the ties that bind, unraveling mysteries that complicate and, finally, enrich intimacy.”
—Verandah Porche, author of Sudden Eden and recipient of an Honorary Doctorate of Humanities from Marlboro College

“In this fascinating exploration of the interconnectedness of lives, Tammy Hetrick mines the ways in which relationships both grow and flounder under the stress of devastating disease, familiarity, and responsibility. Stella Rose takes the reader through the volatile territory of adolescence as a teenager navigates unchartered possibilities replete with equal doses of hazard and potential.”
—Yvonne Daley, author of Octavia Boulevard and director of the Green Mountain Writers Conference

“Tammy Flanders Hetrick has written a marvelous first novel. Stella Rose is the dramatic, clear-eyed story of a dying mother who leaves her beloved friend the most precious legacy imaginable: her sixteen-year-old daughter to raise. All three characters—Rose, Abby, and Olivia—are wonderfully likeable, both for their strengths and their human shortcomings. Ultimately, Stella Rose is a celebration of love in many forms, from wildly romantic passion to friendship, and eternal family devotion to an abiding love of the world we all live in.”
—Howard Frank Mosher, author of A Stranger in the Kingdom and Where the Rivers Flow North

“Warmhearted and sincere, Stella Rose is a sensitive portrait of loss, friendship and the families we choose. . . . A big-hearted novel of love and loss, narrated by a woman grappling with grief while caring for her best friend's teen daughter.”
—Shelf Awareness for Readers

From the Publisher