Somebody Else's Daughter

* early disclaimer: I do not summarize/give away plot in my reviews.

When TLC Books offered me the opportunity to review Elizabeth Brundage's new book, Somebody Else's Daughter, I jumped at the chance.

For starters, I loved, The Doctor's Wife, and also, hello. Books! A beautiful hardcover uncracked spine new book smell such a treat yes, thank you very much please send right away!

It's been a crazy couple of weeks around these parts, there has been Halloween, there have been parties, there has been the election (sucking our brain dry) and each night, as I finally collapsed into bed, I thought, "Oh, dear...sooo tired, I'll read tomorrow nighzzzz".

Turns out I was smart to wait for the clear light of day because from the first page to the last, I found this book impossible to walk away from... it grabbed me and I just had to keep going... had to know what happened next.

The first chapter is perhaps one of the finest I have ever read. I found myself weeping by 10... already so involved in the lives of these characters.

A small summary, taken from Amazon is this:

At the center of Elizabeth Brundage’s new novel lies an adoption under stressed and tragic circumstances. Willa, brought up in elegant prosperity, is now a student at the prestigious Pioneer School. But her biological father, a failing writer and former drug addict, can’t live with himself without seeing her again.

In this idyllic Berkshires landscape, Willa’s adoptive parents have fled a mysterious past; a feminist sculptor initiates a reckless affair; teenagers live in a world to which adults turn a blind eye; and the headmaster’s wife is busy keeping her husband’s disastrous history and current indiscretions well hidden. The culmination of these forces is the collision of two very different fathers—biological and adoptive—and a villain whose ends and means slowly unfold with the help, witting and unwitting, of all around him.

Now, I can't summarize better than that.

There are a lot of forces at play in Somebody Else's Daughter... adoption, drug abuse, sex abuse, adultery, violence... but they are woven together, with these characters, these characters who are so tightly connected but only we see the full picture and it's one of those books that had me mumbling throughout... "No, don't go with him! Wait a couple of minutes... oh, this is not going to be good..." like a crazy person.

The characters, even the "bad guys" were developed and real... multi faceted and full of nuance... you could see the potential for good and bad in all of them... which is, of course, life. We are all capeable of such greatness and such sorrow... and our daily lives are wrapped the stories and history of those around us. There is no such thing as "living in a bubble"...we're connected in ways we cannot imagine.

But what drove me the most, from page to page, from chapter to chapter, was Willa and her relationship with Nate (her biological father) and her adoptive parents. As an adoptive parent, to a child who will probably never know her birth parents, I both seek out and turn away from stories such as this... for selfish reasons mostly... sometimes I don't know just how much thinking I want to do about circumstances I cannot control.

But Brundage is deftly sensitive to parents on both sides of the fence... there is a moment when Willa, given some information about her past, turns to her mother and father and says, "You're my parents. I love you." And, of course, I cried. Because it is love for this child that ultimately saves her.

So, Somebody Else's Daughter... a thriller, a weeper, a love story. A fine, fine read.

And you can read it too! I'm going green and passing along my copy. Leave a comment here (open for 3 days) and will pick a lucky winner!