Readers may be just a tad skeptical about this slender volume of short fiction by Cash, a singer who topped the country charts for a decade. But if you've followed Cash's career, you know that she has left the country spotlight to record her own heartfelt compositions, and her talent as a lyricist translates beautifully into short fiction. The brief but polished, emotionally resonant tales collected here possess the perfect timing, fluid expressiveness, and subtle circularity of ballads. Several stories reflect Cash's life as a performer as well as the mother of three daughters, but Cash is imaginative and each of her female protagonists has a distinctive persona and uniquely vivid inner life. A young acting student abruptly casts off her crippling self-consciousness; a wonderfully confident mother of teenage daughters exults in their bond; another mother goes to Europe on her own to "give birth to her middle-aged self" ; and in the poignant title story, a woman has nightmares about not being able to save her child from drowning. Yes, motherhood, with all its fears and blissfulness, is the key theme here (Cash has dedicated these stories to her children), but motherhood as seen by a woman who understands loneliness and the price of being yourself. Wise, funny, and eloquent, Cash's stories are as deeply affecting as her songs.
—Donna Seaman, Booklist
