Where No Gods Came » (First Paperback Edition)

Sheila O'Connor is the winner of the 2003 Michigan Literary Fiction Award for novel. She teaches writing in the M.F.A. program at Hamline University.

Where No Gods Came, the 2003 winner of the Michigan Literary Fiction Award for original novel, is a candid portrait of the unlikely faces of good and evil, and how an innocent must learn to recognize them to endure

Library Journal

Since infancy, Fiana McCoy has lived with her father in San Diego. Then, when she is barely teenaged, her debt-ridden father must take an oil-rig job off Australia's coast, and Fianna is sent to Minneapolis to live with her mother, Lenore, and older sister, Cammy. The neurotic and alcoholic Lenore is incapable of parenting, and Fiana must instead nurture her mother while coping in a new and hostile environment. Told in alternating voices, this is a poignant tale of childhood ended abruptly and the discovery of a new and stronger self. Sisters Fiana and Cammy are complex, wonderfully drawn characters who burst from the pages and enthrall the reader. Cammy's tough exterior belies the nurturing older sister, and, in Fiana, O'Connor effectively captures the naivet of the child and the burgeoning perceptiveness of the teenager. The relationship between the sisters is the soul of the novel, as they journey from loathing to loyalty and love. Written with precision and perception, this is a highly recommended work from a writer to watch.-Caroline M. Hallsworth, City of Greater Sudbury, Ont. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.