Any Bitter Thing by Monica Wood

Synopsis
Lizzy Mitchell was raised from the age of two by her uncle, a Catholic priest. When she was nine, he was falsely accused of improprieties with her and dismissed from his church, and she was sent away to boarding school. Now thirty years old and in a failing marriage, she is nearly killed in a traffic accident. What she discovers when she sets out to find the truths surrounding the accident and about the accusations that led to her uncle’s death does more than change her life. With deft insight into the snares of the human heart, Monica Wood has written an intimate and emotionally expansive novel full of understanding and hope.

The novel starts with Lizzy’s accident, a hit and run, she mentions it is her memory. Then we go back in time to when she went to live with her uncle, Father Mike. The novel is written in the past, switching from Lizzy’s childhood and her recent memories after her accident. It also takes us back to Lizzy’s childhood to Father Mike’s point of view, but told in the third person. All this moving back and forth and from person to person may sound confusing, but it is done very skillfully and seamlessly, you are not really jumping around, just kind of flowing with the movement. As Lizzy moves toward the truth, there are some twists and surprises, one that I did not expect at all, yet it all seemed to fit. I enjoyed this book and recommend it.