It is only after all of the festivities of the New Year have subsided does it become apparent that someone has been left behind. Patience Theisen, a twenty-year-old drifting through day to day life dies, left beside a dumpster 300 miles away from home. Bewildered by her arrival in what she is told to be Heaven, Patience slowly comes to terms with her death as she watches those she left behind struggle to do the same on earth. Made to explore the strands of the past that brought them to the end of her life, Patience’s memory dredges up old secrets, reopens wounds and illuminates the dishonesty of the image her family constructed of her.

Blessed Ashes will appeal to any fiction readers interested in a person driven narrative, one that delves into the psychological aspects of the family bond. It will encourage one to consider what it really means to be a parent or a child and all that comes with those roles.