Deep in the Heart - Hardcover

Penny Reed is taking her first tentative steps toward independence. Until now, her world has been narrowly defined - by her devout grandmother, Mattie, and the rigid doctrine of their church. On the other side of the city, Hannah Solace, an assistant principal of the local high school, is pregnant for the first time at the age of forty. Her husband, Carl, an artist who runs the bookstore at the town mall, is ecstatic and sees the pregnancy as a chance to rekindle their faltering marriage. But Hannah's fears about motherhood and the memories of her own painful childhood run deep, and without telling Carl, she decides to terminate the pregnancy. At the local clinic, Hannah, Carl, and Penny come face-to-face: This single stroke of fate will have profound reverberations, forcing each of them to reevaluate everything they have come to believe about love, motherhood, and family.

Deep in the Heart is a stunning novel. Sharon Oard Warner accomplishes the magical act of making each mundane life significant, each small pain or pleasure alarmingly real, each sentence a marvelous achievement. Deep in the Heart is a novel one can finish but never walk away from, a superbly crafted story that will keep reading itself to you for a long time."
--Louis Owens, author of Nightland

In the tradition of John Irving's The Cider House Rules and Sue Miller's The Good Mother, this emotionally charged debut novel explores the moral complexities surrounding one of the most controversial issues in American culture.

In her own sheltered corner of Austin, Texas, twenty-three-year-old Penny Reed is taking her first tentative steps toward independence. Until now, her world has been narrowly defined--by her devout grandmother, Mattie, and the rigid doctrine of their church, led by a charismatic young ministe