--PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, starred review

"Sojourner uses passion, high-energy storytelling, and unflinching empathy to break the reader's heart."
--KIRKUS REVIEWS

"The abiding theme is that mistakes will be made, losses will pile up and yet--by accident or luck or sheer determination--most of these characters will manage to endure."

--THE NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW

"The heart in these stories beats out of its chest. Sojourner is the voice of the luckless, the rejected, and the defiantly free. Reading this collection will give you blisters in tender places, and you'll be proud of them."

--BRADEN HEPNER, author of Pale Harvest

"Sojourner is a weaver of the heart. She adds perfect threads, creating lives and moments so absolutely real and human you feel them in your own self, whether you want to or not. There is a sting beneath everything she writes."

--CRAIG CHILDS, author of Virga & Bone

"Long ago, farming families would leave a candle in a window at night so that a wayward soul wandering in the dark could find a way to comfort. This best describes Mary Sojourners' tales of small lives struggling for connection."

--H. LEE BARNES, author of The Gambler's Apprentice