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Katie O'Rourke
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Blood & Water Kindle Edition

by Katie O'Rourke (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 73 ratings
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Tucson, Arizona is a place for runaways. Everyone came from somewhere else and has a story about what they left behind.

Delilah arrives on her brother's doorstep with a secret. She hasn't seen him in five years. He ran away from their family long ago for reasons no one talks about and she still doesn't understand. The stress of raising his teenage daughter alone sometimes makes David envious of his deliberately childless friends, Tim and Sara, but they're runaways too, harboring secrets of their own. Blood & Water tells their stories and traces the deep connections between this unlikely group of friends.

This novel is about family, in its various manifestations: the one you're born into, the one you choose and the one you create.
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  1. Print length
    188 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publication date
    November 21, 2017
  5. File size
    1676 KB
  6. Page Flip
    Enabled
  7. Word Wise
    Enabled
  8. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  9. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Review


Blood & Water is Katie O' Rourke's most compelling and heartfelt novel to date, a story about family--past and present, predetermined and chosen--and the deep veins that keep them connected." -Mary Vensel White, author of The Qualities of Wood

"In what is becoming her signature style, Katie explores interwoven relationships with kindness and insight. As always, a pleasure to read; I enjoyed this well written gem. " -Cass McMain, author of Gringo
"This is the first novel I have read by Katie O'Rourke, and I'll be sure Blood & Water is not the last... Blood & Water is an emotionally engaging story and one I would recommend for women's fiction readers." -Samantha March for Readers' Favorite
"It's very insightful, the metaphors are dropped in at just the right frequency, and dialogues are realistic to the point of sometimes being painful." - Judge, 25th Annual Writer's Digest

From the Author

I write family sagas with overlapping characters, so they're all connected. The stories in these books exist on their own and can be read in any order, independently from each other. They're not sequels, but because all of the characters live in the same world, there's an opportunity to revisit the past. Readers of Monsoon Season will find a familiar face in Finding Charlie; if you're still wondering about Juliet when you finish A Long Thaw, look for her in Blood & Water.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B0777T3BN2
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ (November 21, 2017)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ November 21, 2017
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 1676 KB
  • Simultaneous device usage ‏ : ‎ Unlimited
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 188 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    3.7 3.7 out of 5 stars 73 ratings

About the author

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Katie O'Rourke

Katie O'Rourke

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Katie O'Rourke was born and raised in New England, growing up along the seacoast of New Hampshire. She went to college in Massachusetts and graduated with a degree in gender and sexuality. She lives in Tucson, Arizona where she writes, loves and is happy.

Monsoon Season, her debut novel, was a bestselling e-book. A Long Thaw was released in 2014, followed up by Still Life, a collection of short stories. Finding Charlie was selected for publication by Kindle Scout in 2015. This year, she released her fourth novel, Blood & Water.

She writes for todaysauthor.com and you can find more information about her books on katieorourke.com. Follow her at facebook/katie.orourke.78 or on Twitter @katieorourke78.

Customer reviews

3.7 out of 5 stars
3.7 out of 5
73 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Christine Mills
4.0 out of 5 stars A story of hate, love, forgiveness and change.
Reviewed in the United States on January 6, 2018
Verified Purchase
Blood and Water is filled with life's real relationship issues and characters easily related to through each ones POV. Katie has a way of exposing our human nature, both good and bad. I look forward to reading her next work.
2 people found this helpful
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Mary Vensel White
5.0 out of 5 stars A story about family--past and present--predetermined and chosen--and the deep veins that keep them connected
Reviewed in the United States on November 22, 2017
Verified Purchase
Delilah is leaving her cheating boyfriend and she has nowhere to go except the home of her brother, whom she hasn’t seen since their mother’s funeral five years before. David is a single father trying to manage his teenage daughter, and he’s not exactly pleased when his wayward sister shows up. From the opening of this absorbing novel, as Delilah nurses a black eye and ransacks her apartment, trying to decide what she can’t leave behind, I was fully along for the ride. The widening ensemble of characters each have their own voice, their own journey to define family and home. Blood & Water is Katie O’ Rourke’s most compelling and heartfelt novel to date, a story about family—past and present, predetermined and chosen—and the deep veins that keep them connected. --Mary Vensel White, author of The Qualities of Wood
3 people found this helpful
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Teresa Collins
3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointing
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2018
I feel like I've just read the novel version of an episode of Seinfeld...much ado about nothing. I know this is supposed to be a novel about families and connections, etc, but to me, it felt like the majority of the characters were all wrapped up in themselves and their issues, especially Delilah and David. And when major things occur in a novel, such as an MVA, I like the details. In this incident, the reader is not told anything, other than the character wakes up in an ER. Was she drinking, so upset she lost control of the car, an attempted suicide, what? I have no clue. Another character has a major health issue and the reader is never given any information about it other than it's progressive and degenerative. I like more details than this. I know this isn't my normal genre and I started to give up about a quarter of the way through but decided to stick it out. Part of me wishes I had moved on to something else.
4 people found this helpful
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jmama
5.0 out of 5 stars Interesting characters
Reviewed in the United States on January 24, 2018
Verified Purchase
Blood and Water tells the story of several characters from their own POV through separate stories that intertwine. I really like reading stories like this and kept wondering how everyone's journey would end. The characters were very interesting. I especially liked David, the long-suffering single dad who got the short of the stick from both his parents and ex-wife. Despite that he was everyone's rock. Great book and I highly recommend it.
3 people found this helpful
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T.J.
4.0 out of 5 stars Real Characters in the Real World
Reviewed in the United States on November 28, 2017
When Delilah finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her, she doesn't know what to do. One impulsive mistake later, and she's on a flight to Tucson where her brother lives. David is there raising his daughter. While Delilah is there, she meets David's friends and sees what kind of a life they have all built for themselves, and what she could have once she decides what to do next.

This is a very real novel, not letting any of the characters escape the real world for a second. They are flawed, they are confused, but they do find some sort of contentment or happiness in where they are, or where they are headed. The key takeaway from what these characters go through is not how they have to suffer through something, but the friends that turn into a chosen family when they need each other's support. While all of the different points of view were a little hard to keep track of at first, the book turned out to be a great snapshot of ordinary life that resonates with readers.
3 people found this helpful
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Henri IV
1.0 out of 5 stars Disjointed and Confusing,
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2022
and full of completely pointless and meaningless f-words.
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A. T. B.
5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written novel of hope and friendship
Reviewed in the United States on January 25, 2018
Verified Purchase
Beautifully written, this collection of vignettes is told from the points of view of several characters. All were decent people I liked and could root for. Yes, they're flawed humans, but their conflicts arose from mistakes and misunderstandings, rather than evil intent. I found that a refreshing change from so many contemporary novels full of despicable characters doing dirt to each other.
4 people found this helpful
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Brandi Easterling Collins
4.0 out of 5 stars Complexity of relationships with family and chosen family.
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2018
I enjoyed this novel very much. The author's portrayal of family with this ensemble cast was compelling and kept me up late to keep reading just one more chapter for several evenings. I was especially drawn to the characters of Delilah and Sara because they had both been through hard times and self-doubt. The characters were flawed and completely believable. I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read about the complexity of relationships with family and chosen family.
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Top reviews from other countries

Jennie E
4.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed Blood & Water more and more as I went ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 16, 2018
Verified Purchase
I enjoyed Blood & Water more and more as I went along. Its finely crafted prose is precise and beautifully concise with no unnecessary detail or overegged pudding in sight. The novel's focus is on what it means to belong to a family and a place, and how not belonging can affect us.

A gentle read - there are no harrowing dramas or breathless, pageturning sections. Instead the novel engages fully with everyday contemporary life lived by ordinary people in America (Tuscon mainly, a hot dry place in Arizona I believe). Relationships in all their complexities are examined - both friendships and families. There's Delilah, whose life has come unstuck after a betrayal by her boyfriend, her brother and his daughter Sadie, her brother's friend Tim and Tim's girlfriend Sarah and Sarah's friend Ally.

I admit that it took me a while to get going - I found it hard at first to keep track of the characters and their relationships to each other. (After finishing I realised that there are other related novels which feature the same characters, which might explain that.)

At the start, Delilah has just fled from her ex and his new lover whose car she has battered, and turns to her brother, who she hardly knows as the two lived very different lives and have never been very close. While she is very pleased to renew her relationship with Sadie, her brother is not at all pleased with Delilah's influence on her daughter... Meanwhile, Delilah finds she is attracted to her brother's friend Tim, who is comfortably entwined with a girl friend.

Delilah's struggle to deal with her brother and get going in a new life engaged me the most - I could strongly relate to her. I was surprised about the direction the novel took re the Tim and Delilah thread.
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