Forgiveness Road

On a hot, humid July morning, sixteen-year-old Cissy Pickering calmly and deliberately shoots her father in the back.

To their Mississippi community, the death of well-regarded attorney Richard Pickering is a fascinating scandal. To Cissy’s distraught mother, Caroline, it’s an unforgivable crime. But in Cissy’s troubled mind, it was the only way she knew to save her younger sisters, the two people she loves most in the world.

Janelle Clayton, the family’s matriarch, has kept her distance from her daughter, Caroline—a fact she now regrets—yet she hopes to do right by her granddaughter, whom she believes implicitly. When Cissy is remanded to the Greater Mississippi State Hospital, new revelations drive her to retreat from reality. It will fall to Janelle to become Cissy’s advocate and rescuer. And over the course of an unlikely road trip, Janelle and Cissy will confront the truths they’ve hidden from the world and themselves—finding courage, resilience, and a bond tender and tough enough to transform them both.

“Mikulencak tackles the complex ramifications of abuse, from unwanted notoriety to complex questions of who is responsible, with grace and empathy. . . . Forgiveness Road is haunting and poignant.”
—Booklist