One of the most contentious issues that gets challenged over and over again is abortion, especially as it relates to a woman's choice and not for a health reason. In 1957, Olivia McAlister discovers she is pregnant with her third child. Feeling stifled by living in Opelika, Mississippi as well as not having friends, and desiring to improve her lot in life, Olivia makes a decision in getting an abortion in order to get a fresh start in life. However, the abortion she gets is a backwoods abortion, which causes her to lose her life. And this is a decision that is destined to reverberate for decades on her husband, her two daughters Grace and June, and her spinster sister. As the years pass, her two daughters become young women and each will grow up with feeling responsible for their mother's death. However, tragedy strikes the sisters once more, especially when one becomes pregnant and is forced to give up her child, while another feels responsible for her sister's plight. As decades continue to move, can the two sisters reunite or will that one fateful night tear them apart forever?

With rich imagery of nature, of sisters' emotions, Minrose Gwin crafts a deep and hidden gem within THE ACCIDENTALS. The scenes are similar to oil pastels on a canvas, demanding a magnifying glass in examining the fine threads that interweave the narrative together, and very often THE ACCIDENTALS is more of a modern art exhibit in life rather than a typical novel of beginning, middle, and end. The tale of the McAlister sisters becomes a compelling examination of missed signs and signals as well as unfinished businesses in life and of the secrets that neither sister knows, where life is bigger than their knowledge.

For a reader that is seeking a tale that is way more cerebral than the standard fare, THE ACCIDENTALS by Minrose Gwin should fit that bill very nicely.