All That We Carried by Erin Bartels

 

Review: Erin Bartels released her first novel in 2019, and her books (three already) have hit the stage with a bang. Her writing carries a confidence that few new authors hold. She eagerly tears open topics that even the most seasoned writer would approach with caution and she writes with bold, striding strokes. She is fearless. 

Her newest book, All that We Carried, is no different. It tackles delicate snares such as faith, spirituality, grief, and loss - and all wrapped up in a riveting adventure. 

The story is based around two sisters, Olivia and Melanie, who lost their parents in a car crash ten years earlier. Since their parents deaths, the girls have gone their different ways and have all but become estranged to each other with both women holding strong assumptions about the other. In a last ditch effort to reconnect, they decide to do a five day hike together through the wilderness. 

Complete opposites in every way imaginable, the trip begins to go sideways before they even turn onto the highway. As they struggle through their mountain trek 'vacation' the physical strain and irritation with each other begins to unwrap the layers of bitterness, grief, and anger that have been stored up in the two women after the death of their parents. Two very different people, they approached faith and grief from entirely different angles - a decade later, can they find any common ground to reconnect and rebuild their family?

Back Cover: The most treacherous terrain is found within

Ten years ago, sisters Olivia and Melanie Greene were on a hiking trip when their parents were in a fatal car accident. They haven't seen each other since the funeral. Olivia coped with the loss by plunging herself into law school, work, and a materialist view of the world--what you see is what you get, and that's all you get. Melanie dropped out of college and developed an online life coaching business around her DIY spirituality--a little of this, a little of that, whatever makes you happy.

Now, at Melanie's insistence (and against Olivia's better judgment), they are embarking on a hike in the Porcupine Mountains of Michigan's Upper Peninsula. In this remote wilderness they'll face their deepest fears, question their most dearly held beliefs, and begin to see that perhaps the best way to move forward is the one way they had never considered.

Thank-you to Graf Martin Communications and to Baker Publishing House for another wonderful book.