Here is publisher’s synopsis:

Max Parkman—autistic and whip-smart, emotionally fragile and aggressive—is perfect in his mother’s eyes. Until he’s accused of murder.

Attorney Danielle Parkman knows her teenage son Max’s behavior has been getting worse—using drugs and lashing out. But she can’t accept the diagnosis she receives at a top-notch adolescent psychiatric facility that her son is deeply disturbed. Dangerous.

Until she finds Max, unconscious and bloodied, beside a patient who has been brutally stabbed to death.

Trapped in a world of doubt and fear, barred from contacting Max, Danielle clings to the belief that her son is innocent. But has she, too, lost touch with reality? Is her son really a killer?

With the justice system bearing down on them, Danielle steels herself to discover the truth, no matter what it is. She’ll do whatever it takes to find the killer and to save her son from being destroyed by a system that’s all too eager to convict him.

I was initially frustrated. The lead character, Max’s mom Danielle, wasn’t a very sympathetic character to me. She seemed pushy and impatient and grating in many ways. This, and the fact that I was reading it in short spurts most of the time, made the story languish.

But once you get to the bloody scene in the hospital things begin to pick up and there are a number of twists and turns that keep you guessing. And of course, Danielle is vindicated to some degree (I won’t spoil it any more than that).

In the end I found it a story where the “hook” is greater than the prose – the creative storyline better than the writing that describes it. Once the story picked up some steam it was entertaining for the most part – I wanted to keep reading to find out what happened – but it left you kind flat at the end.

On a sunny day in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1977, Becca Burke, flame-haireddaughter of Mary and Rowan Burke, was struck by lightning. She was eight years old. Noone believed her, even when her Winnie-the-Pooh watch kept losing time and a spookyhalo of light appeared over her head in every photograph taken after the strike. She was hitagain when she was 16. Becca survived, but over time she would learn that outsmartinglightning was the least of her concerns.

Buckley R. Pitank never knew his real father, but his mother was the love of his life–until the day she was struck and killed by lightning on a boat in Galveston, Texas, just asthey were making a new home far away from their troubled past. Reeling from the loss ofthe one person who truly understood him, Buckley returns to Mont Blanc, Arkansas, tolive at the mercy of his mother’s estranged husband, the Reverend John Whitehouse.When he finally escapes, Buckley’s quest to understand the power of lightning will leadhim around the country and into the heart of a young woman who once thought she wasalone in the world.

So with a few clicks I had it available to read on my Kindle – and I finished a few weeks back and wanted to finally post on it. It turned out my hunch was right and it was an engaging read.

More thoughts below.

Despite my interest, my initial worry was that this story would turn out to be too dark or morose for my tastes.  But instead I found Young-Stone’s portrait(s) of characters buffeted by storms literal and metaphorical captivating. She skilfully captures both the time periods and ages involved as well as the variety of ways humans can find tragedy – both of their own making and that out of their control.

Weaving the life stories of Beca Burke and Buckley R. Pitank together with excerpts from Buckley’s self-published book – which mirrors the title of the novel – Young-Stone keeps the reader moving forward. You know in the end that Burke and Pitnak will meet and there is likely to be fireworks but Young-Stone manages to pull it off anyways.

The ending struck me – no pun intended – as poignant; life may be cruel but humans find a way to carry on and even find some good to hang on to.

A creative and engaging debut.