At nineteen, Marian Taylor cut herself off from her wealthy, conservative Irish Catholic family and left America to volunteer in the Spanish Civil War--an experience she has always kept to herself. Now in her nineties and diagnosed with cancer, Marian finally shares what happened to her during those years with her granddaughter Amelia, a young woman of good heart but only a vague notion of life's purpose. Marian's secret history--of personal and ethical challenges nearly unthinkable to Amelia's generation, of the unexpected gifts of true love and true friendship--compels Amelia to make her own journey to Spain to reconcile her grandmother's past with her own uncertain future. Moving and deeply felt, There Your Heart Lies explores how character is forged in a particular moment in history--and passed down through generations.
"An emotionally and historically rich work with a strong character portrait holding together its disparate parts." --Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"[An] astute and powerful variation on the Jamesian theme of American innocents abroad. . . . Gordon's masterful pairing of passionately descriptive, stunningly revelatory action scenes with . . . churning interior monologues conveys with arresting insights and startling immediacy the intersection of brutality and faith." --Booklist (starred review)