Despite the secrets, bad choices, and transgressions, the Brennans fully embody the definition of the word family. When readers meet them, the four children are adults, their father is alive and their mother is dead. A childhood friend has also become part of their clan. After a five-year absence, the only daughter returns home. What she finds reveals fissures in the family and a past she can no longer keep secret. As the story progresses, readers learn she is not the only one with secrets.
Tracey Lange brings readers well-defined characters who are flawed, some more than others. Even so, their bond and loyalty are impregnable, no matter what. This is where the power of the story resides. As their history is revealed, it becomes obvious to see why they have become the people they are. Alternately told by the family members, the narrative does not feel like fiction. Skillfully crafted, WE ARE THE BRENNANS by Tracey Lange is an engrossing story about the power of family. It is well worth reading. Highly recommended.
In the vein of Mary Beth Keane’s Ask Again, Yes, Tracey Lange’s We Are the Brennans explores the staying power of shame—and the redemptive power of love—in an Irish Catholic family torn apart by secrets…
When twenty-nine-year-old Sunday Brennan wakes up in a Los Angeles hospital, bruised and battered after a drunk driving accident she caused, she swallows her pride and goes home to her family in New York. But it’s not easy. She deserted them all—and her high school sweetheart—five years before with little explanation, and they've got questions.
Sunday is determined to rebuild her life back on the east coast, even if it does mean tiptoeing around resentful brothers and an ex-fiancé. The longer she stays, however, the more she realizes they need her just as much as she needs them. When a dangerous man from her past brings her family’s pub business to the brink of financial ruin, the only way to protect them is to upend all their secrets—secrets that have damaged the family for generations and will threaten everything they know about their lives. In the aftermath, the Brennan family is forced to confront painful mistakes—and ultimately find a way forward, together.
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