True Places: A Novel - Softcover

Sonja Yoerg grew up in Stowe, Vermont, where she financed her college education by waitressing at the Trapp Family Lodge. She earned a PhD in biological psychology from the University of California, Berkeley; and wrote a nonfiction book about animal intelligence, Clever as a Fox, before deciding it was more fun to make things up. Her previous novels are House Broken, The Middle of Somewhere, and All the Best People. Sonja lives with her husband in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia.

“‘Sometimes,’ Sonja Yoerg writes, ‘it takes a stranger to show you what should be obvious, how far you’ve drifted from who you want to be, from what’s right for you.’ In this engrossing and provocative novel, we meet Suzanne—a woman who (like many of us) asks herself: How did I end up living this life? Into Suzanne’s methodical suburban existence comes Iris: sixteen years old, formerly feral, and grappling to understand the excess of modern-day society. As Suzanne and Iris travel together—both literally and figuratively—their journey reveals not only the true places that reshape their own lives, but also those of the loved ones who speak to their hearts.” —Cynthia Swanson, New York Times bestselling author of The Glass Forest and The Bookseller

“Sonja Yoerg is a master story spinner who builds a tale of escalating intrigue while at the same time exploring emotional depths few authors are able to reach. In her latest, True Places, she keeps the reader asking, ‘What would I do?’ which is a sure sign of a knock-out novel. When she twists the plot again and again, she manages to help us escape all of our own constraints to fully embrace the journey. Beautiful, unique, suspenseful, and full of wonder, True Places is a unique gem of a novel that will leave readers with a full heart and a recharged mind. Bravo!” —Julie Cantrell, New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of Perennials

“With luminous prose and a story that speaks straight to the heart, Sonja Yoerg has crafted another stunning novel. True Places is a beautiful reminder that though we may busy ourselves seeking what we want, what we need has an uncanny way of finding us.” —Camille Pagán, bestselling author of Life and Other Near-Death Experiences

“True Places is a true adherent to Sonja Yoerg’s specialty—smartly written family dramas with a twist. In this case, the twist is the blending of a typical suburban family with an anything-but-typical parentless child whose presence creates considerable tension, causing each member of the family to reconsider where they fit in, and what they are, and are not, willing to give to maintain household harmony.” —Julie Lawson Timmer, author of Five Days Left, Untethered, and Mrs. Saint and the Defectives

“One of Sonja Yoerg’s great strengths as a novelist is her ability to portray women in all their complexity. Suzanne Blakemore is a perfect housewife and mother who has denied herself her own identity for so long that it seems she has forgotten to even look for it. When she picks up a child, dirty, starving, and abandoned, on the side of the highway, and eventually convinces her husband to take her in, it seems like yet another thing to take up space on Suzanne’s relentless to-do list. But it is in opening her heart to Iris that Suzanne begins to find a piece of herself—and the strength to realize that her own needs matter too. Gripping, emotional, and deeply authentic, True Places will have you flipping pages long into the night. This is Yoerg’s most compelling, honest novel yet.” —Kristy Woodson Harvey, national bestselling author of The Secret to Southern Charm

“In True Places, Sonja Yoerg has crafted a story both tender and triumphant. As Iris and Suzanne begin their journey toward healing and hope, readers will be swept along in the gorgeous narrative and fall in love with the artfully drawn characters plucked from real life. This beautifully told, heartwarming tale will find a home in the heart of anyone who is familiar with love and loss—and the promise that even when it seems impossible, life will brim with joy again.” —Nicole Baart, author of Little Broken Things and You Were Always Mine

“Sonja Yoerg has a talent for creating richly drawn, realistic characters, and the Blakemores at the center of this novel are no exception. The family’s tensions are familiar and universal...a father and son at odds, a distant daughter, and a mother who has repressed her own ambitions in service to the family. I felt as if I were an extended part of their household, which made it all the more compelling when Iris, an orphan raised in the woods, stumbled into their lives and shook things up. Yoerg is a brilliant observer of nature, both in the human sense and as applied to the outdoors. Her prose pays loving attention to the details and science of the natural world. Readers will enjoy every moment of getting lost in the pages of True Places, wandering the paths and rural roads of the Blue Ridge Mountains along with the novel’s relatable characters. A beautiful book, all around.” —Susan Gloss, USA Today bestselling author of Vintage and The Curiosities