What We Carry

Fans of Anita Shreve will relish this rich, complex novel born of the author's own loss and grief, and how one can overcome tragedy through bravery and self-discovery.

Cassidy Morgan's life has always followed a carefully laid track: top education, fulfilling career, and marriage to the love of her life, Owen. The next logical step was starting a family. But when a late-term miscarriage threatens to derail everything she's worked so hard for, she finds herself questioning her identity, particularly what it means to be a mother. Unable to move past her guilt and shame, she realizes there's more to fix than a broken heart. Grief illuminates the weaknesses in her marriage and forces her to deal with her tumultuous relationship with her own mother.

Cassidy hopes her work as a veterinarian specializing in equine reproduction will distract her from the pain but instead finds that one of the cases she's working on throws a spotlight onto the memory of her unborn son. For once in her life, Cassidy is left untethered and wondering why she wanted to become a mother in the first place. Now, she must decide to --let her pain forever hold her back or trust that there's still something to live for.

Then the unexpected happens when Cassidy becomes pregnant again. But the joy over her baby is tempered by her fear of another loss as well as her increasingly troubled marriage. On a "babymoon" to the North Carolina Outer Banks, a ferocious hurricane arrives, not only derailing her best-laid plans but also threatening her family's safety. Can she and Owen weather the hurricane? And is it true that after every storm comes a rainbow?