Historical Fiction
Date Published: August 28, 2024
Publisher: Universum Press
All families have their secrets. How far will they go to keep them hidden?
Savannah Schaeffer believed she was protecting her daughter by keeping the dark truths of their family’s secrets. Now, facing her imminent mortality, Savannah realizes her efforts may have caused more harm than good. With little time to waste, she finds a way to work around her inability to speak the truth. She prepares a scavenger hunt to reveal the secrets of her past that she had withheld from her daughter, Chloe.
The scavenger hunt will lead Chloe to two explosive journals—her great-grandmother’s and her grandfather’s—to reveal how intergenerational trauma impacted Savannah’s life and why she kept it secret. Chloe also has plans for the final week of her mother's life. She has promised to honor her mother's wish for a peaceful passing.
A palliative care physician, Chloe is ready from a medical standpoint but feels unprepared personally. She has called off her engagement at her mother's request and is now second-guessing her decision. She also wants to understand her mother's choice never to marry.
Making Up Stories: A Novel tells the story of family secrets and explores a mother's and daughter's desire to break free from intergenerational trauma. It's a story about their love for each other and the sacrifices they're willing to make for each other. Complex characters and situations raise profound, sometimes unanswerable questions about family, life's gray areas, and the promise of hope.
A Five Star, Must Read review from ReedsyDiscovery and Making Up Stories: A Novel, touched me in so many ways. I have not had a book affect me in so strong a way for a long time. This one will stay with me for awhile. As I was reading I could take a few seconds, close my eyes and see it playing out like a movie. It was that intense for me.
The story is told in multiple perspectives and boy, does each character have a story to tell. Chloe has agreed to help her dying mother, Savannah, in her last days, to leave this earth peacefully. Her mother has left her journals written by her and important family members. Those journals tell a very different story than what Chloe always believed. Her instructions for her daughter are to read the journals in the order she has requested and to do it while Chloe is sitting vigil with her.
Secrets are never good but all families have them. I could easily put myself in Chloe's shoes, reading the journals I felt like I was sitting beside her. They were at times extremely hard to read, especially where her grandfather wrote about Nazi Germany and the horrific things he saw as a doctor who was there when the camps were liberated.
Chloe's shock, horror and frustration came through so well in the author's words. Imagine learning so much about your family history, having questions and your only parent is not able to answer them due to her illness! Chloe, like her mother, is a very strong woman.
There is a lot happening in this book and I admit, at times I got a bit lost but soon things became clear. I have to say that Dwayne was my favorite character. He's smart, supportive and you could feel his love for Chloe.
Making Up Stories: A Novel is about a dysfunctional family, secrets, best friends, life journeys. Keep some tissues nearby when you read this, you will need them. Highly recommended.
Reviewed by
each other. Complex characters and situations raise profound,
sometimes unanswerable questions about family, life's gray areas, and the promise of hope.This novel is a perfect read for book clubs interested in discussing
death with dignity, mother-daughter relationships, and intergenerational trauma.
Love this blurb in bold. Tells just the right amount very clearly. Top one is a little
vague/confusing. For the bold blurb, you could add the sentence from above
version about book club appeal.
Long Version
(can put on Amazon, Goodreads etc)
In her thought-provoking, poignant debut work of fiction, Making Up Stories: A Novel
, Susan Myhre Hayes, tackles complex and painful issues around family secrets and how deception, whether to protect family members from uncomfortable truths, or more
often, from a sense of personal and familial shame, erodes the psychological foundation of subsequent generations.
Long suspecting that something significant has been left unspoken, Chloe Schaeffer, a palliative care physician, learns that her mother has only a few weeks to live. In that short time,her mother wants to share with Chloe the painful truths that shaped the family. As Chloe begins to unpeel layers of untold stories, largely working through grandparent’s journals, she discovers that generations of hastening, facilitating, and causing death, is a Schaeffer family legacy. Shaken to her core, yet grateful to have the opportunity to put together missing pieces of herself, Chloe helps her mother die the death she’d
hoped for.
Shortish Version
In her thought-provoking, poignant debut work of fiction, Making Up Stories: A Novel , Susan Myhre Hayes, tackles complex and painful issues around family secrets and how such deception, whether wanting to protect family members from uncomfortable truths, or more often, from a sense of personal and familial shame, erodes the psychological foundation of subsequent generations. If you are interested in the topics of generational
trauma, parent-child relationships, and death with dignity—this one is a must-read.
Sue Hinkin is an award-winning author of the Bea Middleton and Lucy Vega thriller series. Hinkin was recently voted Rocky Mountain Writer of the Year.
Making Up Stories: A Novel, touched me in so many ways. I have not had a book affect me in so strong a way for a long time. This one will stay with me for awhile. As I was reading I could take a few seconds, close my eyes and see it playing out like a movie. It was that intense for me.
The story is told in multiple perspectives and boy, does each character have a story to tell. Chloe has agreed to help her dying mother, Savannah, in her last days, to leave this earth peacefully. Her mother has left her journals written by her and important family members. Those journals tell a very different story than what Chloe always believed. Her instructions for her daughter are to read the journals in the order she has requested and to do it while Chloe is sitting vigil with her.
Secrets are never good but all families have them. I could easily put myself in Chloe's shoes, reading the journals I felt like I was sitting beside her. They were at times extremely hard to read, especially where her grandfather wrote about Nazi Germany and the horrific things he saw as a doctor who was there when the camps were liberated.
Chloe's shock, horror and frustration came through so well in the author's words. Imagine learning so much about your family history, having questions and your only parent is not able to answer them due to her illness! Chloe, like her mother, is a very strong woman.
There is a lot happening in this book and I admit, at times I got a bit lost but soon things became clear. I have to say that Dwayne was my favorite character. He's smart, supportive and you could feel his love for Chloe.
Making Up Stories: A Novel is about a dysfunctional family, secrets, best friends, life journeys. Keep some tissues nearby when you read this, you will need them. Highly recommended.
Reviewed by
About the Author
Susan has had many successful careers in philanthropy, public relations and education, but when she wrote the book, Peace in the Puzzle: Becoming Your Intended Self, she found her true purpose. Utilizing the material in her book and her personal experience, she is passionate about supporting both individuals and groups become who they were born to be.
Susan’s coaching is tailored to each person’s unique needs, and each group presentation is crafted to align with the interests and needs of each specific audience.
Through compelling stories, she engages individuals and groups by taking them through her journey to find purpose, shares the tools she developed and encourages them to do the same.
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