Scarlet in Blue : a novel
(Book)

"Part mystery, part coming-of-age story, and part tragedy, Scarlet In Blue, by acclaimed novelist Jennifer Murphy, traces the lives of a mother and daughter who, because of their fugitive lifestyle and the pain that overshadows it, share a dependence and a love so strong neither can imagine life without the other. Fifteen-year-old Blue Lake is a budding pianist who resents her mother Scarlet's nomadic lifestyle. She yearns to settle in one place so she can live a normal life and play her music. But Scarlet, a talented painter, is on the run from a phantom man. A man she insists is chasing them. A man who means to kill them. Blue has never seen this man and questions whether Scarlet, who is slowly going mad, has hallucinated him. It isn't until 1968, when they arrive in the small beach-front town of South Haven, Michigan, that Blue's wishes begin to come true. She makes a good friend, falls in love, and can finally play piano. Everything seems to be going fine-until Scarlet kills the man she believes has been hunting them. Forty-six years later, Blue, now a pianist for the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, is leaving practice for her lunch-time walk past the Art Institute when she's startled by the announcement of a new exhibit. Highlighting the effects of chemistry on Impressionist masterpieces, the exhibit triggers memories of her mother and the long ago murder. Memories that Blue has spent a lifetime trying to forget. Told through the alternating voices of Blue, Scarlet, and Scarlet's psychoanalyst, Henry, Scarlet In Blue is a story of a mother and daughter's enduring love, the ramifications of past abuse, and the art that holds their lives together. In its depiction of the bonds between mother and daughter, this novel is reminiscent of Janet Finch's White Oleander and Celeste Ng's Little Fires Everywhere. In its exploration of the fraught psychological puzzle of the past, it calls to mind Gillian Flynn's Sharp Objects"--,Provided by publisher.