Dysfunction Junction

When three women receive an unexpected phone call that leaves them reeling, they have no other choice but to reckon with a lifetime of memories they’ve long tried to bury. Only in facing the past will they find their path forward.

Frances Mae Livingston’s firm grip of her family’s destructive history makes her hold her husband and four children even closer. But she’s losing bits of herself while proving to everybody and her mama that she’s enough. There’s no way she’ll repeat her mama’s mistakes, even if it kills her.

Annabelle McMillan didn’t have trouble kicking the Eastern North Carolina dust off her feet. The tough part was replanting herself in familiar soil. Now she’s blending her old life with her new husband, stepson, and unborn child. And battling old memories of abandonment and new fears of rejection.

Dr. Charlotte Winters has built a career around helping others sort through their emotional baggage. She’s also spent a lifetime refusing to unpack her own. So what if Charlotte doesn’t recall all that her mama did to her and what her daddy didn't do for her? Her only mission is to help others help themselves…until the women from her past and the man in her future undo her well-sewn life.

At the junction of healed and hurting, broken and whole, and past and present, three women wrestle with their inability to forgive and forget in this riveting Southern family drama about sisterhood from award-winning author Robin W. Pearson.

• Southern family saga
• Discussion questions for book groups
• For fans of Black authors like Patricia Raybon, Toni Shiloh, and Brit Bennett

Robin W. Pearson's writing sprouts from her Southern upbringing, her belief in Jesus Christ, and her love of her husband, her seven children, and their dog, Oscar. Her novels are "rooted in the soul of the story" and include her Christy Award–winning debut. After correcting grammar up and down the East Coast, this editor and homeschooling mama has settled on her North Carolina sofa in her pajamas and orange beanie. Follow her on robinwpearson.com.