Everyone has their loads to bear. The main character in Jane Harsock’s novel carries many loads, and a chance to renovate a historic mansion could be a blessing or a curse.

In Load Bearing, Hannah, a young mother with a troubled past, moves to Indiana when her much older husband gets a dream job offer, and convinces him to buy a historic but run-down mansion built by a locally renowned architect who died under mysterious circumstances. Hannah soon becomes wrapped up in the epic scale of renovations and obsessed with the history of the house and the life of the long-dead architect while her marriage begins to crumble brick by brick.

Admittedly I found there to be some sections that dragged in the first half of the novel with the finer details of taking on the renovation, and as things picked up in the latter half of the novel, I couldn’t help but wish for it to go places even darker…spookier. But in the end, I appreciated Hartsock’s grounding of the story and characters in reality.

The result is a finely crafted novel depicting a woman trapped in a marriage who finally comes to terms with unresolved trauma and realizes what she truly wants and needs out of life. The renovation of the house, the mystery of the architect’s death, and other events are the tunnels through which she must travel to come out into the light on the other side. I especially found the scenes detailing Hannah’s grief and her domestic sparring with her husband exceptionally well done.

All in all, Load Bearing is a well-written piece of contemporary literary fiction with a strong psychological bent that I would highly recommend to anyone who enjoys reading such things.

Purchase the book.

Review by D. H. Schleicher