The Rub: A Novel

Nominee for the Utah Humanities Council Book of the Year for 2012-13 Two fifteen year-old girls. One suicide pact. One girl survives. Four years later, the surviving girl's mother and the dead girl's father begin an affair, shattering the lives of all involved--each of them suffering, each of them carrying their own brand of grief and denial, culpability and survival. But not everything is as it seems. As the two families hurdle toward an inevitable revelation from that night four years ago, no one will get out unscathed. But redemption is, and always has been, for those who embrace the horror of truth. In this provocative novel, Carter-Winward explores the dark side of love, sex and intimacy, the way in which grief and loss warps us, and the very human parts of us simply looking for relief from the brutal onslaught of regret.