Losing Love

A Novel

Fiction - Literary
178 Pages
Reviewed on 01/12/2022
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Author Biography

B.J. Herron was born in Chicago and raised in the South Suburban area outside of the city. Growing up, she was fascinated with words and storytelling, and the meaning behind them. This interest led to some early exposure to reading since she was drawn to poetry and stories about people who looked like her. Later, B.J. received her BS in Mass Communications from Tennessee State University and her MFA in Creative Writing from Full Sail University. She also worked for eleven years as a writer and editor for a myriad of publications, including the Chicago Defender. She now lives in Nashville, Tenn. Losing Love is her first novel.

    Book Review

Reviewed by K.C. Finn for Readers' Favorite

Losing Love is a work of fiction in the interpersonal drama and social issues subgenres. It is intended for mature readers and was penned by author B.J. Herron. The book follows Faith Shields as she is forced to return home after 15 years following a family tragedy. Now back in the environment that left a lifetime of scars, Faith must put the ghosts of her past to rest once and for all if she is to have any hope of a happy future. Surrounded by painful memories and the people who caused them, Faith and her husband Nicholi aim to walk away at the end of the visit stronger than ever.

This book is a powerful piece of family drama that casts a long hard look at the damage that poor family relationships can do to a person and the lifelong effects of that damage. Faith is an excellent lead character for such a story, balancing strength and vulnerability as she is forced to step back in time and confront her personal demons. B.J. Herron is a deft storyteller who perfectly captures the feelings of dread that a person can experience in an environment filled with painful memories. Constantly able to make familiar and normal surroundings feel oppressive through association, Herron’s prose is consistently high quality, and the author's understanding of trauma is evident throughout the work. Losing Love is an incredible journey and a very worthwhile character study of a trauma survivor. Overall, I recommend it strongly to fans of deep and meaningful family dramas.

Bernadette Longu

In Losing Love, author B.J. Herron takes you into the life of people who have been marginalized and shows how they cope with a full deck of cards stacked against them. B.J. Herron has written in such a way that anyone who has grown up in a marginalized society with the associated problems, heartache, love, joy, and the utter despair that seems to be a constant companion will understand. The main character is Faith, married to Nicholi, her Granny Frances, uncles Pat and Terrell, her mother Catherine or Cat, and assorted cousins. Faith is telling this wonderful story with the other characters making appearances from time to time. The second character that appears throughout the book with Faith is her grandmother Frances who is the matriarch of the family and the light in the dark.

Losing Love by B.J. Herron is well worth reading from cover to cover for it explains and shows so much of a world that some of us have never imagined, and how this affects families, and how they progress in life. The author shows how many times the same mistakes are repeated from generation to generation until someone in the family has the tenacity to break the cycle--but it is a long slow process. Losing Love takes place in the previous century and migrates to the current century where the changes seem to be slow in the pipeline. It is a book that you will want to read again to really see how each character unfolds and learns but you also realize that there are family members that will never learn and never change and sometimes it is best to leave them be. B.J. Herron writes with sensitivity so that you feel as if you are in the story. I enjoyed reading this book. Thank you for a very insightful, interesting look into this world.