The Best Kind: A Novel

By Rhonda Hackett

Funny and poignant, The Best Kind charts the triumphs and heartaches of a motley cast of women you won’t soon forget.

Rose McNally hails from a long line of Newfoundland women who’ve been practically bred to put everyone else’s needs first. Self-care is as foreign a concept to Rose as expecting anything other than a life of misery is to her mother. Margaret has tried everything under the sun to make her eldest daughter see the sense in putting up with the hand you’re dealt and is just about out of her mind with Rose’s foolish claptrap notions of life fulfillment and purpose. Despite a legendary effort to blaze her own trail to contentment, Rose finds herself staring down her 40th birthday as an unemployed, overweight wife and mother, contemplating an affair that will destroy her marriage, the one thing she’s managed to get right until now.

Just as Rose starts to believe her mother’s life philosophy may be best after all, she learns her beloved grandmother, Hannah, is much sicker than anyone realized. On her deathbed, Hannah relives the mortal sin she committed more than seventy years ago. She’s sure she can save Rose from making the biggest mistake of her life, but must decide if revealing the secret upon which the McNally family is built is too big a price to pay.

As Rose and Hannah reveal the desperate measures they have taken to find love, they uncover the damage inflicted by keeping secrets and discover the redemptive power of memory and forgiveness. The Best Kind, rooted in quirky Newfoundland culture, is a wild ride that will have you laughing and crying in equal measure.

“Two very different voices are satisfyingly written....a tight, compelling story of generations living out torment and passing wisdom to the next. A work of women’s fiction that is truly a standout.”
Diane Donovan, The Midwest Book Review

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Rhonda Hackett grew up in a tightknit family in St. Bernard’s, a small fishing village on the Burin Peninsula, Newfoundland. She currently resides in Denver, CO with her husband and two children. The Best Kind is her first novel.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Rhonda Hackett
• Release date: Oct 6, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311715272

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