By: Shelley Noble
ISBN: 0062439065
Publisher: William Morrow
Publication Date: 6/7/2016
Format: Other
My Rating: 4 Stars From the New York Times bestselling author of Beach Colors and Breakwater Bay comes this heartwarming story of love, family, and redemption. Two young girls pledged to be best friends forever. Separated by circumstance and hurt, they are reunited years later as they struggle to put their differences aside for the sake of a special little girl—perfect for fans of Elin Hilderbrand, Jane Green, and Kristin Hannah.
Two women… One little girl…
Can they forgive the past in order to ensure the future of an innocent child…?
Once a foster child herself, Sarah Hargreave can’t wait to finalize the adoption of her foster daughter Leila. Sarah longs to give her all the love and stability she was denied in her own childhood. She’s put her own friendships and even her relationship with Wyatt, her longtime lover, on hold in order to give Leila her full attention.
When Leila’s biological mother suddenly reappears and petitions the court for the return of her daughter, Sarah is terrified she’ll lose the little girl she’s come to love as her own. Convinced the mother is still addicted to drugs, Sarah and her social worker enlist the help of high profile family lawyer, Ilona Cartwright. But when they meet, Sarah recognizes her as Nonie Blanchard who grew up in the same group foster home as Sarah. They’d promised to be best friends forever, then Nonie was adopted by a wealthy family, and Sarah never heard from her again. Sarah still hurts from the betrayal. But Nonie harbors her own resentment toward Sarah who she believes abandoned her when she needed her most.
Mistrustful of each other, the two women form a tenuous alliance to ensure Leila’s future, but when Leila’s very survival is on the line, they’ll have to come to terms with their own feelings of hurt and rejection to save the child they both have come to love.
A special thank you to LibraryThing and HarperCollins for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Review to follow.
About the Author
When I was a kid, I was always envious of other kids who knew exactly what they wanted to be when they grew up. I wanted to be everything. A concert pianist, an intergalactic diplomat, a nurse, a bronco rider, an astronomer . . .
No sooner had I decided on one thing, then some other fascinating thing came along to change my mind.I grew up in the south; we played softball and dodge ball, but more often than not, our games often took us on imaginary journeys. We had mock battles: Wyatt Earp, Lancelot, and that alien menace, Dorg. We put on elaborate plays and invited the neighborhood.Summers could be torturously hot and humid. Some days were just too sticky to do anything but read or sit in my favorite chair and imagine stories about all the things I was going to be when I grew up. These could last for several months. I’d just pick them up where I left off the day before and continue from there. Sometimes I would rewind the story and change the direction it was taking.
One summer I had three ongoing stories in my head, that I could pull out one according to my mood.There’s probably a clinical term for this kind of activity. And it never occurred to me that I was actually training to be a writer. But that came many, many years later.I the University of Utah where I planned to major in philosophy and dance. Okay so far nothing had changed. I still didn’t know what I wanted to be when I grew up. We could get up to three feet of snow over night. The campus is very large and built on a steep slope. My philosophy class was at the top of the hill first thing in the morning and I usually managed to get there on time. But my ballet class was at the opposite end of the campus and downhill. The ballet teacher would lock the door so late comers couldn’t get in. She said I had to make a choice. I chose dance. Read More
