"A Song for Issy Bradley" by Carys Bray ****

• An Early Review edition for LibraryThing.com
• English author
• Debut novel
• Originally published August 2014
• Epigraph:  "For my soul delighteth in the song of the heart; yea, the song of the righteous is a prayer unto me, and it shall be answered with a blessing upon their heads.".....(Doctrine and Covenants 25:12)
• Quotes:
• p.20..."Maybe that's how repentance works, a sort of gradual baptism of skin and tissue, the shedding of the old self and the cultivation of the new."
• p.33..."It always feels weird when ordinary people come round; the picture of Jesus in the hall seems to double in size and Al feels like an outsider, someone who has grown up in the country of the house without managing to learn its language."
• p.35..."It's as if Dad lives in the overlapping bit of one of those Venn diagrams, straddling both worlds.  Other people adapt, they step from circle A to circle B, they act normal in real life and accessorise their Sunday clothes with holy words and best manners, but Dad is unchanging.  He exists in a perfect egg of divine assurance."
• p.94..."Never is a word that doesn't always mean not-on-your-nelly and absolutely-no-way.  Sometimes never means not yet."
• Notes:
• Oldest daughter, Zippy, is reading old classics like "Persuasion", "Jane Eyre", etc.  
• Review:  This is the story of a family in a crisis of faith after the loss of a loved one.  The fact that the family are Mormon adds a dimension to my reading because the author, who was herself raised as a Mormon, shares details which are informative about some of the Mormon traditions.  However, I think this test of faith can occur for any person and that is what makes this novel so meaningful.  I particularly like the treatment of all the children and the way this questioning takes developmentally accurate forms.  The author subtly and tastefully calls into question some of the practices while never crossing into disrespect.  I am not Mormon.  I think this book can be understood in different ways, and I think that the reader's belief system prior to reading it will largely determine how they will walk away from it.  I hope it was the author's intention for that to happen.  Excellent debut!