by Deniau (Author) First Place winner in the 2022 Somerset Awards of the 2022 Chanticleer International Book Awards. 5-Star, "Highly Recommended" Rating from Chanticleer Book Reviews in 2023. International Impact Award for Women's Fiction 2021. 2nd Edition Redemptive coming of age novel about a naive Missourian in 1949 who moves to New York City to escape her abusive mother. At the end of twenty-year-old Gillian Rysert's train journey from St. Louis to New York City in 1949, she believes she's escaped her narcissistic mother Hannah. Magnetized to violence by her mother and bereft of her father, Gillian no longer lets love in. So far, Gillian's reserve has shielded her from risking heartache.