Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Amity & Sorrow: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Amity & Sorrow: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Amity & Sorrow: A Novel
    Audiobook9 hours

    Amity & Sorrow: A Novel

    Written by Peggy Riley

    Narrated by Erin Bennett

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    A mother and her daughters drive for days without sleep until they crash their car in rural Oklahoma. The mother, Amaranth, is desperate to get away from someone she's convinced will follow them wherever they go--her husband. The girls, Amity and Sorrow, can't imagine what the world holds outside their father's polygamous compound. Rescue comes in the unlikely form of Bradley, a farmer grieving the loss of his wife. At first unwelcoming to these strange, prayerful women, Bradley's abiding tolerance gets the best of him, and they become a new kind of family. An unforgettable story of belief and redemption, AMITY & SORROW is about the influence of community and learning to stand on your own.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHachette Audio
    Release dateApr 16, 2013
    ISBN9781619691490
    Unavailable
    Amity & Sorrow: A Novel

    Related to Amity & Sorrow

    Related audiobooks

    Religious Fiction For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      'Mirage' Is A YA Marvel That Weds Sci-fi With Courtly Intrigue

      Sep 25, 2018

      Somaiya Daud's debut novel sets the story of a court rebellion in a Moroccan space fantasy.

      3 min read

    • Article

      Fiction

      Jun 9, 2023

      Fiction
      3 min read

    • Article

      Treat Your Shelf

      Mar 11, 2024

      Treat Your Shelf
      1 min read

    • Article

      Salt Slow

      May 22, 2019

      Salt Slow
      1 min read

    • Article

      WIN! Encanto PRIZE PACKS!

      Dec 2, 2021

      Disney's Encanto tells the tale of an extraordinary family, the Madrigals, who live in a magical house, in a vibrant town, in a wondrous, charmed place called Encanto. The magic of Encanto has blessed every child in the family with a unique gift from

      1 min read

    • Article

      Nomadland

      Nov 10, 2020

      Directed by CHLOÉ ZHAO Starring FRANCES MCDORMAND DAVID STRATHAIRN CHARLENE SWANKIE Released 1 JANUARY Zhao’s filmography is two for two so far. Let’s see how this one goes. Make that three; Zhao is one of our brightest hopes for cinema’s future. A d

      3 min read

    • Article

      Joyland

      Jan 12, 2023

      Joyland
      2 min read

    • Article

      After Love

      May 6, 2021

      After Love
      2 min read

    • Article

      Frances Wilson

      Sep 21, 2022

      Bloomsbury Circus £16.99 Kamila Shamsie is a British-Pakistani novelist who structures her fiction around historical and personal turning-points: partition in 1947, the independence of Bangladesh in 1971, the nuclear attacks on Japan and 9/11. Her fi

      3 min read

    • Article

      The Family Ties

      Jun 20, 2021

      The Family Ties
      3 min read

    • Article

      Books Of The Month

      May 5, 2023

      By Alex Latimer The Fruits and the Vegetables are long-standing enemies – until secret friends Grape and Mushroom set off on a pilgrimage to the Wise Old Cheese. Can they find a way to bring peace to fruit bowl and veg drawer alike? A riot of verbal

      2 min read

    • Article

      Better Books

      Sep 17, 2020

      Kate Mildenhall, $32.99 Mim’s husband is missing. No one knows where Ben is, but everyone wants to find him. The government has fitted the population with a tracking chip to keep them ‘safe’. Mim is made to surrender her passport and threatened with

      2 min read

    • Article

      Read! Read!

      Sep 11, 2022

      DEBORAH ABELA Arlo lives with Uncle Avery in a flat above their bookshop, along with his pet mouse, Herbert. When a girl runs into the shop and begs Arlo to hide her, he is swept into an adventure full of car chases, kidnappers, and a story in The B

      2 min read

    • Article

      Amanda

      Jun 6, 2023

      Amanda
      2 min read

    • Article

      Route Mastery

      Feb 5, 2021

      Route Mastery
      2 min read

    • Article

      Life-changing Reads

      Aug 5, 2022

      READ THESE By RYAN STRAMROOD Tracey McDonald Publishers After a painful divorce, Ryan Stramrood decided he needed a challenge and so he joined a swimming squad. From swimming lengths in a school pool, the Cape Town businessman progressed to a 7,5km

      3 min read

    • Article

      What’s On Netflix?

      Oct 11, 2020

      What’s On Netflix?
      2 min read

    • Article

      Herself

      Sep 15, 2020

      Herself
      2 min read

    • Article

      Umma

      Apr 20, 2022

      RELEASED OUT NOW! 2021 | 15 | 83 minutes Director Iris Shim Cast Sandra Oh, Dermot Mulroney, Fivel Stewart, Tom Yi Given the modern-day glut of heavy-hitter horrors deftly addressing societal issues at the same time as delivering scares, there were a

      1 min read

    • Article

      Bird’s Eye View

      Oct 27, 2022

      Bird’s Eye View
      2 min read

    • Article

      Book CLUB

      Dec 29, 2021

      Book CLUB
      1 min read

    • Article

      Amazing Grace: Reading Kelly J. Beard’s ‘An Imperfect Rapture’

      Sep 30, 2019

      For another memoirist, it would be easy to resort to a rhetoric of absolutes, but Beard’s elegant and direct prose teems with complexity and nuance. The post Amazing Grace: Reading Kelly J. Beard’s ‘An Imperfect Rapture’ appeared first on The Million

      5 min read

    • Article

      Books

      Feb 16, 2024

      Books
      4 min read

    • Article

      Soul-stirring Stories

      Jan 28, 2020

      This delightful debut will break your heart,then put it back together again as the story of prickly,stubborn and lonely Millicent Carmichael unfurls. Missy is 79, her son has moved to Australia, she’s estranged from her daughter and she’s missing her

      1 min read

    Reviews for Amity & Sorrow

    4/5

    9 ratings8 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 4/5
      Amity & Sorrow opens with a mother Amaranth running away with her daughters Amity and Sorrow. When her car crashes in rural Oklahoma, Amaranth is taken in by Bradley, a farmer who is reeling from the departure of his wife, the illness of his father, and the problems of farming in hard times. As the story unfolds, we learn that Amaranth and her daughters are running from a polygamous cult. When the cult was raided because of allegations of child abuse, Amaranth has grabbed her daughters and run as far and as fast as she can. But no matter how far she has come, she never stops looking over her shoulder, convinced that she can never run far enough or fast enough to escape the husband she has left behind.But her children know nothing of the outside world; they can't read or write, have never watched TV or seen a computer. All they know is Father and all of their mothers and the temple where Sorrow was oracle, first of all the children and perhaps more than daughter to her father. Amity can learn to adapt to a new life but Sorrow will not accept a place where she is just one of many prophets who speak in tongues and tell of the coming Rapture, where she isn't oracle, where she is not first among many daughters and wives. And she will do whatever it takes to get back to Father.Amity & Sorrow is an interesting tale of love gone bad in so many ways: between wives and husbands, children and parents, and between love of God and carnal desire and greed. It is a tale of broken people leading broken lives but seeking love and redemption all the same and although they are usually looking for salvation in all the wrong places, it is the very act of seeking that gives the story a sense of hope. I know nothing of polygamous cults so I cannot speak to the accuracy of the way this one is depicted. But it makes for a fascinating portrait of so many wives spinning around the altar, their long skirts flaring out around them, celebrating each return of their husband and each new wife he brings with them.Although set in modern times, it felt much older, perhaps because of the isolation both of the cult and of the farm, but also because of the references to Grapes of Wrath, Steinbeck's wonderful novel of Oklahoma farmers during the Great Depression. The story also switches time as it slowly allows us to see how Amaranth's story and that of her children unfolds and how so much love and hope had become so tainted and why she was trying so hard to put things right even though it is clear that not everything or everybody can be fixed.I won't say I enjoyed this novel; it was disturbing in a whole lot of ways especially in the characters of Sorrow and Father but it certainly kept my attention. It is a relatively short tale but not an easy one. But, then, whoever said things had to be easy to be good.
    • 2/5
      I requested this book because the cover and description grabbed me, I loved the premise of the book but the execution of said premise didn’t go very well in my opinion.Amaranth and her daughters Amity & Sorrow are on the run from their cult leader/preacher/god complex husband/father, when they crash their car they are eventually taken in by a farmer who has already taken in a young boy named Dirt and is trying to take care of his invalid father.Amity & Sorrow are some very disturbed girls and will need a lifetime of counseling. I did not like anyone in this book; they were all flawed some way more than others. I like books with flawed characters but these were beyond the norm. I know I should give more of a reason but if you decide to read it I don’t want to spoil anything for you but know that there are some very tough issues in this book that I felt were not handled well at all.I came close to DNFing this book but wanted to see what happened but was very disappointed. The ending of this made me sick to my stomach and made me mad that I kept reading!This book just didn’t do it for me, I see others really enjoyed it but this is not one I will be recommending to anyone.2 starsI received this book from netgalley & the publisher for a fair and honest review.
    • 3/5
      This book intrigued me from the start. It begins with Amaranth driving a car at breakneck speed with her two daughters, Amity and Sorrow. They are escaping the compound were Amaranth was wife number one out of fifty other wives.The plot was tense and often disturbing. But the writing was well done and I was really eager to find out more on what had happened at the compound to cause Amaranth to finally escape with her two daughters. Amity and Sorrow have know no other life and are both bewildered and confused about their new situation. Sorrow longs for home and her father and Amity is caught between confronting a new life and about being loyal to her sister.I was hoping for more of a conclusion to the story, but I really don't think it could have gone any other way.Intense, unsettling story about the religious beliefs and isolation of children from any other way of life and its affects on Amaranth's daughters. I received a complimentary copy from Netgalley.
    • 3/5
      the novel had potential and interesting moments but overall, i felt the narrative was very choppy and the characters didn't really develop during the story. fascinating premise that just didn't quite become fully realized for me.
    • 5/5
      I just read in the newspaper that this is the 20th anniversary of the siege and fire in Waco, TX. It is likely that this event of 20 years ago was the seed of the story that Ms. Riley tells in Amity & Sorrow: A Novel. Blessedly, there is no real politics interjected into the story, but rather she focuses on the influence of a dangerous and charismatic man and the effect he had on several of those who loved and trusted him. The book begins as Amaranth, the one of 50 wives, has fled from a devastating fire at the Temple and home of her husband, a polygamist, messianic/end of the world cult leader. (Picture a combination of David Koresh and Warren Jeffs.) She is fiercely protective of her two daughters, Amity and Sorrow, and has taken them with her believing that her husband was the one to have set the fire in an attempt to destroy them all. Her fear keeps her driving for 4 days straight until she finally wrecks her car after falling asleep one to many times. Fortunately they are all alright, but their car is out of commission and their lack of money makes this the end of the line in their flight. The effects of their husband/father on Amaranth, Amity, and Sorrow's lives from this point on creates a complex and original story that I found hard to get out of my head. The cover of the book pictures the girls bound together at the wrists. Their mother has done this to try to keep the oldest and most disturbed of the girls from attempting to return to her father who she sees as god. He continues to exert a powerful control over all of them, even in his absence. Their freedom lies in discovering a way to live in this world that is so different from what the girls have ever known. A simple, but understanding farmer, Bradley, allows them to take shelter with him. He appears to be a lonely man, his wife having left him, and he is a sitting duck for the needy women. Ultimately he is pivotal in changing some of them, and he and his elderly father offer the real salvation in the story much at their own expense.I was mesmerized by the way the story, both the current as well as the backdrop unfolded. It is very disturbing, but at the same time realistic. It is through the perspective of the women that the author really brings the conflict and crisis of the story to the reader. She does a wonderful job of showing the differences between the women, and you can feel the tension and ultimate madness that eventually consumes one of them and brings the book to a close.I am thankful to the publisher, Little, Brown and Company and NetGalley for the chance to read and review this book. It is a powerful and original story. I recommend it to readers who enjoy books that have psychological twists and get into the character's minds. It is not an ordinary story and will stay with me for a long time.
    • 4/5
      Cults, members of cults, a mother and her two daughters, a farmer in Oklahoma and his somewhat adopted son, Rust,and an old man, these are the characters that make up this debut novel. I found the writing addictive, this novel taught me more than any other book about the reasons people join cults and the effect that being the member of a polygamous cult has on its people. Amity, who is twelve, is the main narrator and we see the world through her eyes. When her mother takes her and her sister escaping from the cult and a fire that has a devastating impact, the girls are lost. Having been raised in the cult the older sister Sorrow, wants only to go back to what she has known. I can't quite figure out if Sorrow is just really messed up from this cult or is she is a psychopath or both, but she was one very messed up character. We see through Amity's eyes as she eats her first doritto, sees a television for the first time and meets a boy who is not her brother. There is a perfect balance in this novel between looking back and experiencing now. I found it a very powerful book, one where questions are inferred in the beginning and the reader is slowly lead to the answer. Charity and love are sharply contrasted against greed and selfishness. The ending is a revelation and one that ends with a sense of hope.
    • 4/5
      Amity & Sorrow is a fascinating book, giving the reader a glimpse into the world of cults and the damage incurred by their fragile and vulnerable members. The book centers on a woman and her two daughters, who have recently escaped from the compound and the deranged ravings of their polygamous cult leader, who is also their respective husband and father.The girls, who are illiterate and completely uneducated about the world we live in, cannot cope with their new reality, and want nothing more than to return to their home. Their mother, desperate to protect them from harm, but dealing with her own demons, struggles to find the right thing to do.I thoroughly enjoyed the immersion into a world that seems so crazy and impossible, and yet is a reality for so many cult followers today. The author has a real knack for story-telling, revealing details slowly and deliberately, telling us just enough to whet our appetite, yet holding back just enough to keep us hanging and wanting to know more. Well done!So I clearly enjoyed the book, but there is one tiny insignificant detail that annoyed me. The author got the steps to boost the car in the wrong order, where she unhooks the boosting cables, and THEN she tries to start the dead car and somehow the battery miraculously worked. I’m obviously nit-picking horribly here (sorry!) but I’d suggest fixing up the sentence so that she starts the car first, and then unhooks the cables. Apart from that, I’d definitely recommend this book to others, and am looking forward to reading something else by this author.
    • 5/5
      A tender, written from the heart novel, this was a very interesting read.Amaranth is the first wife of self styled "God" Zachariah. But there are 49 other wives and this "religious" sect leader certainly preaches free love. Following a very suspicious fire at their at their commune, Amaranth grabs her two teenage daughters, Amity and Sorrow, gets in the car and drives to who knows where. After crashing the vehicle, help comes in the most unlikely shape of a struggling farmer, Bradley. His run down gas station on the edge of his farm becomes home to the three runaways.Amity takes to the new life with a sense of relief, but not Sorrow, who just wants to go home and live under Zachariah's warped spell. Is there more to his hold over the young girl? Amaranth slowly begins to understand herself and the delusions she has been playing along with. Her fear that Zachariah will follow them to the ends of the earth to retrieve them is palpable. I loved the characters in this book. Amaranth, and the realisation of what she has allowed to happen to herself and her daughters, cuts a lonely figure who only seems to be able to make a connection to her rescuer by offering him sex. Amity, on the cusp of womanhood, who is trying to understand a world she never knew existed is such a strong voice....a voice she has never been allowed to speak. Sorrow, a deluded and confused soul, who is lost without her father/God telling her what she must do, is the saddest of all. Bradley's elderly father, confined to his bed, a miserable curmudgeon....but he becomes Amity's teacher and companion. Dust, the aptly named farm worker, who strives to please everyone and Bradley himself, totally confused by these strange females and later horrified by what they have been subjected to in the name of a false "God."This is Peggy Riley's first novel and it is a credit to her. It may not be to everyone's taste, but I loved it and thoroughly recommend it.