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Summary
Summary
Brooke O'Connor--elegant, self-possessed, and kind--has a happy marriage and a deeply loved young daughter. So her adamant refusal to have a second child confounds her husband, Sean. When Brooke's high school boyfriend Alex--now divorced and mourning the death of his young son--unexpectedly resurfaces, Sean begins to suspect an affair.
For fifteen years Brooke has kept a shameful secret from everyone she loves. Only Alex knows the truth that drove them apart. His reappearance now threatens the life she has so carefully constructed and fortified by denial. With her marriage--and her emotional equilibrium--at stake, Brooke must confront what she has been unwilling to face for so long.
But the truth is not what Brooke believes it to be.
Lucy Ferriss's haunting novel reveals the profound ways in which remorse over the past can not only derail lives but also--sometimes--redeem them.
Author Notes
Lucy Ferriss is the Allan K. Smith Writer-in-Residence at Trinity College. She lives in Hartford, Connecticut.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
This uneven novel follows a cast of vulnerable characters as they navigate lives littered with the tragic consequences of youthful mistakes. Brooke O'Connor has carried a secret for years: at the age of 17, she bore and abandoned a child behind a motel in Windermere, Conn. The act pushed her and her lover, Alex, apart; instead of going to college as she'd planned, Brooke found work at a plant nursery and married Sean, an affable Irish tenor prone to drink, while Alex went to Japan, married, and lost a son to a heart condition. Fifteen years later, Brooke and Sean have a precocious daughter and Sean is aching for another child. It's around this time that Alex reappears. They return to the scene of the crime to seek closure and, Brooke hopes, save her rocky marriage. What she and Alex stumble across back in Windermere, however, pushes the reader's suspension of disbelief to the breaking point. Ferriss (Nerves of the Heart) writes many lovely, poetic passages, but this maudlin tale, full of flawed souls flung implausibly together, relies on too many coincidences. Agent: Albert Zuckerman, Writers House. (Feb. 7) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Kirkus Review
Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist Review
Graceful, poised Brooke loves her small family, but she's afraid of making it bigger, not for any medical reason but because of a heartbreaking secret from her past. When her husband pushes for more children, an old boyfriend comes back into the picture almost too conveniently and spurs Brooke to revisit that painful moment 15 years ago. What follows is an emotionally riveting story of reliving mistakes, seeking redemption, and finally facing the consequences of a difficult decision (with a few more handy appearances of the old boyfriend along the way). Ferriss moves the plot along at a fast clip, deftly weaving together recollections of the past and, as the disturbing truth of Brooke's secret slowly emerges, the present. All the while, Ferriss infuses the story with a heady dose of realism. Financial crisis looms as businesses close, workers get laid off, and consultants are brought in to streamline. Lost Daughter manages to be a romantic family novel with a palpable atmosphere of impending calamity. Sure, there's a happy ending, but that doesn't mean everything's right in the world.--Hunter, Sarah Copyright 2010 Booklist
Library Journal Review
Brooke and Alex were high school sweethearts until an unexpected pregnancy and its gruesome end separated them. Fast-forward 15 years, Brooke is living a comfortable life with her husband and daughter when Alex, recently divorced and mourning the loss of his young son, turns up out of the blue. Seeing Alex again, coupled with her husband's insistence that she have another child, Brooke begins to unearth her long-buried guilt about her long-ago decision. Alex and Brooke begin to meet frequently, discussing their past and discovering new consequences of that night. Brooke's husband, suspecting her of cheating, begins his own downward spiral. -VERDICT Dealing with multiple heavy subjects like abortion, abuse, infidelity, and crumbling marriages, this slow-paced novel takes a while to get going as Ferriss (Nerves of the Heart) dredges through the mind-numbing particulars of Alex and Brooke's current situation. This story is also often derailed by eye-rolling metaphors (a therapist is compared to a gardener pulling weeds out of a character's soul), awkward sexual scenes, and stereotypical characters, including a black single mother fresh out of rehab who speaks in poor, broken English. Still, readers who have raised families could relate to the issues addressed here.-Brooke Bolton, North Manchester P.L., IN (c) Copyright 2012. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.