Geographies of the Heart tells a story about family - the one you are born into and the one you chose for yourself. Sarah and Glennie are two sisters born into the same family, but worlds apart in personality and life choices. Sarah puts family before everything else, while Glennie is endlessly and single-mindedly driven to pursue her passion in life, medicine, and puts it first. Their decisions over the course of the years from 1994 to 2019 shape their lives, and puts a strain on their relationship as Sarah struggles to understand Glennie's choices. Through better and worse, Sarah, Glennie and Sarah's husband Al navigate the joys and trials of life though happy family moments, tragedies and the challenges of everyday life.

The novel is deeply reflective, with insightful observations on how we communicate (or not) with family, how it shapes our identity and the significant role that family history and story-telling plays in our lives. "It's important to know how one's story begins, especially in our family. Stories connect us; words are our banners and flags. We have no crest. We have the twining of our chapters." The novel flows and reads like a series of related short stories, including the perspectives of each of the three primary characters. It is an artistically written piece of emotional and reflective literary fiction, quite unlike anything I have read before. Many thanks to NetGalley and to Suzy Approved Book Tours for providing me with the opportunity to read it.