Readers will have an opportunity to meet award-winning author Susan Beckham Zurenda on Sunday, October 11, from 2:00 to 3:30 pm at Sunshine Book Company (647 Lake Avenue, Clermont), where she will present her powerful new novel, No Way Out but Through.
Inspired by the life of a real woman who endured an appalling childhood and a forced marriage as a teenager, No Way Out but Through is an emotional story of survival, resilience and, ultimately, the possibility of healing.
The novel arrives at a particularly significant moment. Across the country, stories continue to emerge about underage girls being trafficked, coerced or trapped in abusive relationships.
The story begins when author Shannon Irwin meets Grace Ferrall, a younger woman with a shocking story to tell. Shannon agrees to write Grace’s story, setting in motion an unusual relationship in which both women are ultimately forced to confront painful chapters of their own pasts.
Told as a frame story with dual narration, the novel moves between present-day Pawleys Island, South Carolina, and rural Oklahoma in the 1990s.
Grace’s story begins in Robbins, Louisiana, where she grows up with an alcoholic father and a mother whose volatile mood swings make home an unpredictable place. Barely 15 and living in Shale, Oklahoma, Grace is manipulated into marrying Rafe, a much older and abusive man.
What follows is years of abuse, multiple pregnancies and miscarriages—and a life in which escape seems almost impossible.
With help from an unlikely ally, Grace finally gets away. But freedom does not come easily. Faced with the daunting task of protecting herself and her two daughters, Grace must make choices no one should ever have to make.
As Shannon and Grace grow closer, their relationship becomes something neither woman expected. By revealing the stories they have kept buried, they begin to confront their own inner demons. Their willingness to be vulnerable with one another opens the door to something neither thought possible: trust, healing and a renewed belief in the resilience of the human spirit.
The novel is the latest work from an author whose career has been steeped in literature and teaching. She taught English for 33 years, at both the college and high-school levels, including Advanced Placement students.
Susan Beckham Zurenda debut novel, Bells for Eli, won numerous awards, including first place for Best First Book—Fiction in the IPPY (Independent Publisher Book Awards). Her second novel, The Girl From the Red Rose Motel, received the Patricia Winn Award in Southern Fiction and an IPPY Gold Medal for Southeast Fiction, among other honors. She has also won the South Carolina Fiction Prize twice.
With No Way Out but Through, she turns her attention to a difficult subject that has too often remained in the shadows.
According to the Zurenda, approximately 315,000 minors were legally married in the United States between 2000 and 2021, and most were girls married to adult men. Through Grace’s story, No Way Out but Through gives a human face to a complex and troubling issue while offering something beyond the pain: a story about courage, connection and the possibility of reclaiming one’s life.
Meet Susan Beckham Zurenda and hear more about Grace’s remarkable journey on Sunday, October 11, from 2:00 pm to 3:30 pm at Sunshine Book Company (647 Lake Avenue, Clermont).
