Reviewed by Rewa Vivienne
An unwanted pregnancy. A kidnapping. Escape.... University student Jemma Howell's life has turned upside down: she's pregnant and her boyfriend has just died.
A lawyer has Jemma sign away the child to her dead boyfriend's parents, the wealthy Winchesters. Some six months after giving birth, Jemma is still obsessed with her baby's welfare. A chance opportunity occurs. She makes a split-second decision. She is now a kidnapper and on the run.
Detective Constable Tim Findlay is assigned to the Winchester kidnapping, his first big case. In the course of the investigation, he and his partner uncover deeply hidden secrets of the Winchester family. For Tim, the difference between right and wrong becomes blurred.
Yet another tale about the angst, misery and heartache surrounding child adoption. Ho hum.
Or so I thought until I started to read this well-crafted story about an ordinary young mother who is driven to extraordinary acts to be with her child. Following the mother and child for fifty years and halfway across the world the reader builds up a rapport with them and gets to answer the question the author asks “Is kidnapping your birth child a criminal act?”
She might well have asked does the end justify the means?
The author’s descriptive powers are such that I felt the enervating humidity of Auckland which was not surprising as I have experienced it, but I have never felt the bone aching cold of a Winnipeg winter and I felt that just as keenly through her writing.
This novel definitely comes into the good read category to the point where the unbelievable becomes believable and where minor inconsistencies can be easily ignored.
Well done Tannis Laidlaw.
This review was first published in FlaxFlower reviews, which focuses on in-depth reviews of New Zealand books of all kinds, and is reprinted here with the kind permission of Flaxflower founder and editor Bronwyn Elsmore.
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