Coming October 2025 from Cervena Barva Press

Description

A timely novel, My Way Home, begins when former teenage lovers separated by war and the denial of a woman’s choice, encounter each other sixteen years later, forcing secrets to be revealed. Clare has struggled privately to heal from the injustice she experienced as a teenager with an unplanned pregnancy, haunted for years by thoughts of what might have become of the child she was forced to carry and then give up for adoption. Just as she is feeling she has regained emotional stability and has moved on from that trauma—a desperately guarded secret, even from her husband—the father of the secret child reappears, back from Canada where he’d been living. Clare fears then, that the life she’s made for herself and her family, could easily fall apart.

What they're saying...

“My Way Home is an often unsettling, always engaging novel full of honesty, heart, and grace. It is both seductive and disturbing, and it will remind you of why you started reading stories in the first place—to be carried away to a more vivid and compelling world. Mary Bonina knows that every story is many stories—Clare’s story is Martin’s story is Ray’s story is Danielle’s story—and she handles the complexities of the interwoven tales of loss, grief, abandonment, and love with intelligence, wit, and courage. Nothing is as it seems."

— John Dufresne, author of My Darling Boy
"Deeply moving, warm-hearted, and wise, My Way Home delves into a world of secrets, forgiveness, and 'a new idea of family.' Beautifully written, Bonina’s novel explores the tender yet powerful ways people respond to the upheavals that love brings. I loved it.”

— Rosie Sultan, author of Helen Keller in Love, winner of the PEN Discovery Award in Fiction
“Complex and haunting, My Way Home feelingly delineates one woman’s predicament and its aftershocks many decades late—a cautionary story all too relevant to a time when a woman’s right to control her body is somehow still—infuriatingly—unsettled.”

— Gish Jen, author of Bad Bad Girl
“How do we ever reconcile a hidden past with a very different present? And who do our children really belong to? Set against the Vietnam years and pre-Roe v. Wade, Bonina’s novel is a haunting look at first love, teen pregnancy, and the dangerous secrets about to erupt in a family. Magnificent.”
 
​— Caroline Leavitt, New York Times bestselling author of Days of Wonder and Pictures of You
“Mary Bonina’s captivating debut deftly explores themes we all must wrestle with during our short stay on planet Earth. How do we live meaningful lives while harboring deep secrets and gaping loss? What do we settle for when we cannot get what we want? What does family really mean? Written with great wisdom and acuity, My Way Home is a beautiful novel, full of truths about the human condition, the ways we delight and disappoint one another, the ways we save each other with our generosity and love. My Way Home shimmers with the honesty and beauty of being alive, each of us trying our hardest to do the next best thing.”

— Mary E. Mitchell, author of Starting Out Sideways and Love in Complete Sentences

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“My Way Home, Mary Bonina’s novel with a Vietnam War era backstory, is a moving tribute to Boston, Cambridge, and those who chose the path of conscientious objectors or crossed the border into Canada. The novel reunites a pair of high school sweethearts—uncovers a painful secret hidden for 16 years—examines the\ role of mothers and stepmothers—gives voice to teenage daughters—and champions the challenges of a good marriage. Using multiple narrators, Bonina lets the reader into the private thoughts and motives of each of the main characters as their lives intersect and family is reimagined. A potent, provocative, and important novel.”

— Anne Elezabeth Pluto, author of How Many Miles to Babylon

To Purchase

The novel will be available for purchase in October 2025 via the author for signed copies and via the publisher, Cervena Barva Press.

Upcoming Scheduled Readings

Novel reading details will be added shortly.