Paperback: 248 pages
Publisher: OakTara (September 15, 2012)
ISBN-10: 1602903298
ISBN-13: 978-1602903296
Everything Claire
wants seems to be beyond her reach... After losing her mother to cancer and
suffering a miscarriage soon after, Claire Ferguson numbs the pain with alcohol
and pills, and wonders if her own life is worth living. Adopted at birth,
Claire is convinced she has some unknown genetic flaw that may have been the
cause of her miscarriage. She must find a way to deal with the guilt she
harbors. But exoneration will come with a price. With her marriage in trouble
and her father refusing to answer any questions about her adoption, Claire
begins the search for her birth mother. For the first time in her life, she
really wants to know where she came from. But what if the woman who gave her
life doesn't want to be found?
My review:
Cathy West seems to excel at
poking for your heart, cutting it into tiny little pieces, ripping out your
guts and sewing it all back together with a little extra love and admiration
added in.
No sophomore syndrome for this
author, in my opinion. Right from the start of West’s new novel, Hidden in the
Heart, I walked with Claire, who was completely out of control with grief and
fear and loss of identity despite having everything most people only dream of.
She certainly wasn’t likeable, nor could she even like herself. In her
determination to find a cause or someone to blame for her miscarriage she sets
out to find her birth parents.
West drew the threads of her
story together tactfully. It wasn’t hard to figure out who was who, but,
rather, the novel was more an exploration of who they became. Why do we abandon
the things or people we love? Only from great depths can people rise to new
freedom, and sometimes only when we are offered a second chance to revisit our
past can we learn to forgive ourselves, let alone the people we wound.
Claire might have had everything
from a husband determined to love her no matter how self-destructive and
hatefully embarrassing she’d become, wealth and a loving home, but she threw it
all away in order to search for answers to fill the hole in her identity, even
if the rest of her birth family is determined to keep secrets or bent on
revealing the worst of themselves. Readers shouldn’t be surprised at the real
conclusions, but will certainly grieve and rejoice with Claire and her
new-found sense of self and family.
West says her novel is very
loosely on her own experiences of being adopted. I’ve come to admire this
author for her realism, the depth of character and the beauty-in-the-face-of-ugliness
of her story lines. Well done.
About the author
Catherine West is an
award-winning author writing inspirational stories of hope and healing from her
island home in Bermuda. Educated in Bermuda, England and Canada, Catherine
holds a degree in English from the University of Toronto. Her first novel,
Yesterday's Tomorrow, released in 2011, her second, Hidden in the Heart, in
September, 2012. When she's not at the computer working on her next story, you
can find her taking her Border Collie for long walks or tending to her roses
and orchids. She and her husband have two college-aged children. Catherine is a
member of American Christian Fiction Writers and Romance Writers of America,
and is represented by Rachelle Gardner of Books & Such Literary. Catherine
loves to connect with her readers and can be reached at Catherine@catherinejwest.com
