Where the River Runs by Patti Callahan Henry

Where the River Runs by Patti Callahan Henry looks at the adolescent we once were and how we got to where we are today. Meridy Dresden's life was all planned out. She had just graduated from high school, she was headed to college in three months, and she would marry her boyfriend Danny. But at a graduation party, a fire breaks out, destroys a landmark of the town, and takes two lives.

Years later Meridy has just seen her son go off to baseball camp before he heads off to college, and she is feeling the pinch of an empty nest. In her home in Atlanta with her successful husband Beau, she learns about a childhood friend being pressed to restore the destroyed landmark back in her hometown in South Carolina. Meridy has been harboring a terrible secret about that night, and she cannot let her friend make such a reparation. Instead, she puts everything at risk as she heads back to South Carolina to see if she can set everything right.

This was Henry's second book in her career of 15 books and counting. As well as writing women's fiction, she also has written the historical fiction called Becoming Mrs. Lewis -- The Improbable Love Story of Joy Davidman and C.S. Lewis. She and her family have homes in Alabama and South Carolina.