Out of the Water was awarded the Bronze Medal for Best Regional Fiction (Mountain-West) in the Independent Publishing Book Awards and named as a Finalist in Women's Fiction in the National Indie Excellence Award.
"Ann Marie Stewart’s Out of the Water is a heartfelt, affecting story that centers on the kind of crisis in family life for which nobody can ever be prepared — and how courage, and especially enduring and courageous love, are the only things that can help us survive." –Jacquelyn Mitchard, NYT bestselling author of The Deep End of the Ocean (Oprah's Book Club) and The Good Son
“Moving, eloquent, and tender, Ann Marie Stewart’s novel Out of the Water follows the flood and ebb of five interconnected women seeking answers, wholeness, and their own definition of home.” –Jolina Petersheim, bestselling author of How the Light Gets In
"Once you step into this story, you won’t want to leave. Out of the Water will cause ripples of mercy to move your heart." –Chris Fabry, Christy Award® and Christian Book Award® winning author of Almost Heaven and Dogwood.
Christy Award® winning author, Ann Marie Stewart delivers a powerful and heartfelt novel revealing five generations of secrets. In the search for healing and truth, a century of stories unravel from the stony cliffs of Ireland, to Boston, France, and Seattle.
Irish immigrant Siobhan Kildea’s impetuous flight from a Boston lover in 1919 leads her to a new family in an unfamiliar Montana prison town. After a horrific tragedy impacts her children, her land, and her livelihood, Siobhan makes a heart wrenching decision – with consequences that ripple for decades to come.
Mysteriously linked to Siobhan is Genevieve Marchard, a battlefront nurse in France who returns stateside to find the absence of a certain soldier is her greatest loss; Anna Hanson, a music teacher who tucks herself away in a small Washington town, assuming her secrets are safe; and Erin Ellis, who thinks she and her husband won the lottery when they adopted their daughter, Claire.
These interconnected stories, spanning three continents and five generations, begin to unravel in 1981 when Claire Ellis sets out to find her biological mother.
With puzzling suspense, unforgettable characters and uncanny insight, Out of the Water is an intoxicating novel of motherhood, secrets, and the profound ramifications our decisions have. Readers will be left wondering: ultimately, is it always better to know the truth?
Christy Award(R) winning author, Ann Marie Stewart's first novel Stars in the Grass won best debut. She originated AMG's Preparing My Heart series and her column "Ann's Lovin' Ewe" is nationwide in The Country Register. When she's not writing a story, she may be acting it out or telling it through song, as she coaches musical theatre. She waterskis, lifts weights, and loves cheering on UVA basketball with her husband and two adult daughters.
