When California divorce attorney Marta Bufford says to friend and seminar leader Gilbert that she needs "to go backward in order to go forward," she's talking about both her personal history and uncertain future, a dichotomy that comes into clear focus during a weeklong meditation retreat in chilly Duluth, Minnesota. Marta simultaneously denies her drinking problem while wrestling with her own impending divorce. She bonds with her plain-speaking granddaughter Jennifer in a fast-paced novel about life's reckonings which takes them on a road trip to Marta's childhood hometown of Myra, North Dakota. Here, she faces the remembered guidance of her maternal grandmother and the haunting of family secrets. Piggybacking on her earlier novel, Forever Blackbirds, Dian Greenwood's newest novel, Blackbird Whistling takes her readers on an historic ride with generations of strong women who try to find their rightful place in an often confusing and uncharitable world as seen through the lens of today's challenges and yesterday's hardships.