Description: "When young folk singer Elle Harlow reaches the height of her prowess in 1973, she has two wildly beloved albums to her name and a hidden history of impossible heartbreak. After she sets foot on the famed Grand Ole Opry stage, a far cry from the mountain that raised her, Elle gives the biggest performance of her life. Then, to the dismay of shocked fans, her producer, and the man who still loves her, she vanishes. Almost two decades later, eighteen-year-old Marijohn Shaw is spending her summer pumping gas, writing songs on her broken mandolin, and longing for a mother. Her father Abe has always sworn he was the last person to see Elle Harlow alive, but when a meteor strikes the woods of their sleepy Pennsylvania town and a piece of Elle's past emerges from the wreckage, the truth of her disappearance sets fire to everything Marijohn believes about herself, her music, and her ability to love with abandon. Wait for Me is an unapologetic, deeply emotive story set in Appalachia and Nashville that defies the trope of the missing woman and gives us a female duo who can find hope in each other and sing the ache in every good song"-- Provided by publisher.
Brief description: Amy Jo Burns is the author of the memoir Cinderland and the novel Shiner, which was a Barnes & Noble Discover pick and an NPR Best Book of the Year. Her novel Mercury was a Barnes & Noble Book Club pick, a Book of the Month selection, a People Magazine Book of the Week, and an Editor's Choice at The New York Times. A western Pennsylvania native, she lives in New Jersey with her family.
Review Quotes:
A READ WITH JENNA TODAY SHOW BOOK CLUB PICK
A GOOD HOUSEKEEPING BOOK CLUB PICK
--Shelby Van Pelt, author of Remarkably Bright Creatures
"Amy Jo Burns has written a soul-stirring marvel in Wait for Me--a novel as wild, lyrical, and full of longing as the songs at its center. Every lyric is a clue, and every character sings with bruised, unforgettable beauty. I would follow Amy Jo Burns anywhere she leads."
--Paula McLain, author of Skylark and The Paris Wife "Numinous and unforgettable, Wait for Me thrums with the heart of a songwriter and the soul of a gifted storyteller. With music and atmospheric beauty, Amy Jo Burns holds our hand along the broken path to wholeness, and proves once again that women can reverse the order of the world. This atmospheric novel left me breathless and in awe."
--Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Book of Flora Lea "The novel is insightful in its depiction of complex relationships between women and of the grueling and sometimes dark sides of the music business."
--Kirkus "Weaving together themes of artistic sacrifice, heartbreak, and the power of familial legacy, Burns captures rural Appalachia and Nashville's country music scene in vivid detail. Fans of Taylor Jenkins Reid's Daisy Jones & The Six (2019) and Kristin Hannah's The Women (2024) will find themselves captivated by this multigenerational story."
- Booklist