BLOG TOUR STOP: Always There by Carol Ann Albright-Eastman

For readers who loved The Five People You Meet in Heaven, For One More Day, or The Shack.

“People walked up the front steps of the funeral home, preparing themselves to see the grieving orphaned children of the woman who passed, but what did they find instead? The youngest orphaned child was snacking on a Quarter Pounder with cheese, drinking a medium Diet Coke, and laughing in a chair with her friends.” 

In this fresh, poignant novel, Always There, Shelby Lynn LeeMaster grapples with her recent “orphaned” life and how to let down her guard to fully experience true love, allowing it in to her heart without fear. The mother, Betheny LeeMaster, struggles with dying before she could teach and guide her children into adulthood. The daughter cannot break from her own fears, while the mother cannot forgive herself for leaving her children too soon. The different narrators, the mother in Heaven and the daughter on Earth, tell their stories in alternating chapters. Can the two women reconcile their fears and remorse being worlds and lifetimes apart? 

Eastman’s honesty explores the tragic ending to a mother-daughter relationship, revealing the pain a motherless daughter experiences. The two vantage points allow the reader to find a connection with the mother and/or the daughter, personalizing the loss that a dying mother and grieving daughter often face. The novel portrays the truth behind the death of a loved one, while glorifying the mystery of Heaven, proving that love does not die when a person does. The channels of love are still open, going in both directions. Love goes on when life does not. The novel bridges the tragic with the comedic, giving audiences a lighter, more enjoyable, sentimental read. You will laugh while you cry, and cry while you laugh, but in the end, you’ll hug your loved ones for dear life.

This book was truly an amazing ride that I think most would be able to relate to. Not only does it make you think, it also makes you feel in ways that maybe you have never thought before. I loved this book because it was told in two points of view - Here and There. Shelby Lynn is having a hard time adjusting to life after almost everyone that she hold dear is taken from cancer. Cancer...the one thing that you have no control over. At 29 she has lost all five aunts, her mother and her father. More heartache, more pain. She is there and she is loosing what control she has of her life, so she shuts down. Here, her mother Betheny, is struggling with her children being left there, with no one to love and care for them. To teach them about the things in life  that are hard enough to handle even with a helping hand. This is an amazing love story. And one that you will want to read and treasure.  

Carol Ann Albright-Eastman is a wife and mother of four, crazy, adorable, incorrigible, intelligent, kind, and athletic children.  She’s taught high school English for fifteen years. She earned a Bachelor’s Degree in English from The Ohio State University, a teaching license and a communications minor from the University of Akron, and holds a Master’s in Education from the University of Akron. 

Eastman spends the majority of her time grading papers, reading, but not as voraciously as other “indie” authors and their devout followers, watching her sons play baseball (or whatever seasonal sport they’re in at the time), negotiating futilely with a toddler, and falling deeper in love with her husband every day.  Eastman is a motherless and fatherless daughter, but a day doesn’t go by that she doesn’t think of them

 

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