Over Yonder

Thank you NetGalley and Thomas Nelson Fiction for sending this book for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

A woman on her deathbed is going to be brutally honest about two things: your present and her past.  Caroline hasn’t seen her mother in ages, but sitting next to her in the hospital room, her mother starts getting honest.  Caroline’s boyfriend is a good-for-nothing guy who will ruin her life; Caroline’s an idiot for getting pregnant so young; she really was a good mother to Caroline; she knows where there’s buried treasure.  While those first few were to be expected, that last one gave Caroline pause – were the drugs affecting her mother’s sanity?  But her mother didn’t give away all her secrets that day – she saved the biggest for her final phone call to a man Caroline had never met, but would end up saving her life.  Her father.

Sean Dietrich is back with his classic Southern Gothic style in Over Yonder, a tale of family drama and second chances.  Dietrich is a man of many talents beyond storytelling – just follow his Instagram page to see a glimpse of his music or check his podcast for his work as a journalist.  But at the heart of all his creations is one thing: the South.  From Appalachia to the Gulf, Dietrich tells the stories of those who might have been less fortunate, and therefore, less respected, in our southern communities, with such care and humanity.  Similar to his other works like Kinfolk, Dietrich includes flawed characters throughout with a strong nod to the family we choose for ourselves when the one we’re born into fails us.

---

I give Over Yonder 5 out of 5 stars.  I have been a fan of Dietrich’s since reading Kinfolk in 2023.  This novel was gripping and had so many different twists to the plot that I really couldn’t see the end coming.  I appreciate the way Dietrich builds the characters with real worries and cares, as well as with real dialogue like that between Woody and his ex-wife.  Readers will feel like these are people they know and like this story could happen in their own town!  

---

Before I dug into works by authors including Dietrich and Terah Shelton Harris, I didn’t realize how much I truly enjoy the Southern Gothic genre.  If you have enjoyed other works by those two authors, or books like Sue Monk Kidd’s The Secret Life of Bees, John Berendt’s Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, or Stacy Willingham’s Forget Me Not, I’d recommend this book.  With domestic abuse, drug and alcohol use, and parental neglect, this work may not be for every reader though.  I would direct this to more mature audiences over 16.

Over Yonder released on October 7^th and is available at your favorite retailer.   You can grab a copy today on our Bookshop.org page!

---

This post contains affiliate links.

What I’m Reading

• Current print book: Wildwood, Amy Pease
• Current audio book: Nightswimming, Melanie Anagnos
• Book I’m most looking forward to: Streets of Laredo, Larry McMurtry