I wanted to share a new book that is inside our Christmas Gift Guide 2025: Evening Begins The Day by Jessica Brilliant Keener. I received a copy of the book in exchange for this review. Inside this post is my affiliate links if you click on the links and make a purchase, I will make a small percentage from the products you purchase.
A suspense novel that touches on death and grief which will keep you on the edge of your seat. Evening Begins The Day is the first book of I’ve read but it will not be the last book by Jessica Brilliant Keener. I shared the book with my sister and she also enjoyed the story a lot.
About the book:
“A riveting journey of hurt and healing, questioning and hope.” -ELIZABETH GRAVER, author of Kantika, winner of the National Jewish Book Award
After she discovers her husband’s infidelity, Rachel Cohen, reeling from hurt and shame, escapes to a rental house in the idyllic town of Woodbury, near Boston. She winds up next door to her colleague Cynthia Meyer, who-unlike Rachel-seems to have everything in this town where parents are high achievers, children excel, and problems are sealed inside well-tended houses.
Cynthia’s a successful VP in corporate giving, who helped fund Rachel’s latest environmental project for elementary kids. Cynthia’s husband is a pioneering researcher in breakthrough cancer treatments. Their only child, Lauren, is set to graduate high school in the spring.
Pretenses shatter the day an ambulance pulls up in front of the Meyers’ house and Rachel watches helplessly as Lauren is carried away on a stretcher. Amid their turmoil, Rachel and the Meyers’ lives begin to intertwine. When they adopt an ancient spiritual practice called the Counting of the Omer, it leads them down unconventional pathways for answers.
Evening Begins the Day shines a light on the complexity of two families in crisis and their transformation from isolation to community, loneliness to hope and joy.
Meet the Author:
Jessica Keener’s bestselling debut novel, Night Swim, was followed by her collection of award-winning stories, Women in Bed. Her second novel, Strangers in Budapest, was an Indie Next pick, a Southern Independent Bookseller Association bestseller, and a “best new book” selection by Entertainment Weekly.
She has been listed in The Pushcart Prize under ‘outstanding writers’ and granted writing fellowships from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, Brown University, Wesleyan University, the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, as well as a women’s leadership fellowship from the Omega Institute in New York.
Her more than 100 feature articles and essays have appeared in The Boston Globe, WBUR’s Cognoscenti, O magazine, Lilith magazine, Psychology Today, and the anthology: Alone Together, winner of the 2021 Washington State Book Prize. Jessica lives with her husband, an attorney, in Brookline, MA.
Thank you,
Glenda, Charlie and David Cates
