HIGHER LOVE
By JOANNE KUKANZA EASLEY
Women’s Literary Fiction
Publisher: Red Boots Press
Pages: 380
Publication Date: May 12, 2025
SYNOPSIS
Higher Love – the new release from Joanne Kukanza Easley, the multi-award-winning author of Sweet Jane, Just One Look, and I’ll Be Seeing You.
In 1986 Austin, Texas, sixteen-year-old Stephanie steps into sixty-two-year-old Lauren’s life, her uncanny resemblance cracking open a buried past. Claiming to be the daughter of the child Lauren gave up for adoption forty
-five years ago, Stephanie upends Lauren’s life—already complicated by her remarriage to Brett after thirty-three years apart. Stung by her adoptive grandmother’s deception, Stephanie stays, her past of tragedy and self-harm forging a fragile bond with Lauren and Brett. When Stephanie’s trust fund evaporates, crushing her college dreams, Lauren sacrifices all to give her a future—only to face a bittersweet twist that echoes the past and changes everything. This heart-wrenching family drama delves into the enduring impact of secrets, the power of unconditional love, and the strength found in facing our pasts.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joanne Kukanza Easley, a retired registered nurse with experience in both the cold, clinical operating room and the highly charged world of psychiatric hospitals, lives in the Texas Hill Country, where she writes fiction about complicated, twentieth-century women. Her multi-award-winning debut, Sweet Jane, was named the adult fiction winner at the
Texas Author Project and shortlisted for the Sarton Award and Eric Hoffer Award, among others. Just One Look, Joanne’s second novel, was a May 2022 Pulpwood Queen Book Club Pick. I’ll Be Seeing You, her third novel, features characters from Sweet Jane. Look for her fourth novel, Higher Love, a sequel to her third book, in Spring 2025. Her prize-winning short stories and poetry have appeared in several anthologies.
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REVIEW
In I’ll Be Seeing You, we see Ruby Lauren Eaton leave her West Texas home for the bright lights of New York and a modeling career that ended up leading her down a path of dreams realized, dreams crushed, self-medication with alcohol, love and loss, and the choice to give up her baby for adoption.
In Higher Love, we find Lauren celebrating her sixty-second birthday with her third and fourth husband, Brett Owens (their story is a humdinger – read I’ll Be Seeing You to get the whole thing), and a host of friends. Life is going well. Her business is thriving. And then a moody teenager, Stephanie Kingston, shows up on her doorstep, and Lauren finds herself suddenly thrust into a role she never expected: grandmother.
I think Brett knew before Lauren that there was no question about Stephanie staying there. Ultimately, Lauren realizes she can’t – won’t – send her granddaughter away, but Brett? He isn’t even biologically related to her, but he willingly steps into the role of grandfather and does his best to mentor, guide, and love a hurting young lady who, at times, does her best to push everyone away. Brett is good as gold (my friend Kristine at Hall Ways Blog refers to him as “Saint Brett the Virtuous,” and it fits!).
As an adoptee myself, I felt terrible for Stephanie and the circumstances in which she learned that her mother was adopted and that she was not biologically related to the only family she’d ever known. That had to be brutal. I grew up knowing I was adopted. I don’t recall a time I didn’t know, and I was secure in my parents’ love for me, my place in my family. Stephanie was already unhappy about living with her grandparents after her father’s death, and she was grieving her mother’s recent accidental death. When the foundation of her life crumbled, there was nothing to keep her there with (as she said) her “fake grandmother.” So she ran – straight to Lauren in Austin, Texas.
I haven’t ever been the mother of a teenage daughter, but I have been a teenage daughter. Like Stephanie, I was mostly good – until I wasn’t. Given the hand life had dealt Stephanie, I think she handled herself pretty well most of the time. She tried to rein in the sass (sometimes more successfully than others) and I think she understood that Lauren and Brett loved her (although she sometimes still feared they’d send her back to Boston), but when she blew, she really blew. I don’t think Lauren ever heard the saying that people most need love when they’re the most unlovable, because she and Stephanie had a few tense moments. This story is about family, though, both biological and found, and Easley does a wonderful job letting her characters grow and develop and work through the struggles they face.
Easley also excels at setting the scene firmly in the mid-1980s. (Even though 1980 was [gasp!] 45 years ago, I couldn’t bring myself to tag this as historical fiction.) Like Stephanie, I, too, am a child of the ’80s, and Easley gives us so many details that are absolutely on point, it almost felt like I was back in that most bodacious decade. The arcade, the clothes, the music, it was my high school years come to life.
I’m not going to tell you how the story ends. You need to read it for yourself. I will tell you this story pulled at my heart and made me want to hug Lauren and Stephanie both at different times (and sometimes, maybe give them a shake). The ending really brings it full circle, and we see how very far Lauren has come from the rebellious girl she was. This is one of those stories I hated to see end, and yet I loved the ending, if that makes sense. Highly recommended for anyone who likes a good character-driven story.
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Terrific review, Lisa! I really enjoyed this book and the prequel. Joanne Easley’s characters are so real.