The Memory Keeper's Daughter

The Memory Keeper's Daughter

Kim Edwards

2006

448 pages

This is quite a unique book. Those Amazon Book Reviews are addictive. I just love to read them, especially the bad one-star reviews. They can be so funny!

Then, I start reading the additional suggestions listed under, "Customers who bought this item also bought." That is how I came across this book.

Even the book's cover was intriguing!

As her debut novel, Kim Edwards didn't shy away from some weighty topics. This captivating story of boy and girl twins separated at birth is a real page-turner. Set in the 1960's, the new mom-to-be did not even know that she was pregnant with twins. In a sincere effort to protect his wife Norah, the husband David, who is also a medical doctor, doesn't ever want her to know that their baby girl was born with Down's Syndrome. Instead, Norah has to face a life-long grief of the "death" of their daughter. The nurse is quickly and quietly told to take the baby girl away to an institution.

The book then takes an uplifting turn in which the nurse, Caroline, decides to secretly keep the baby and raise her. Caroline's compassion and love for this new baby bundle in her arms is simply amazing! This is the part of the book that really stuck with me.

I have read a lot of other book reviews in which the book is described as slow-going and overly detailed. However, I did not look at it this way.

If you too, are intrigued by family history, mystery, and darkly hidden secrets (even in a fictious manner), then this is the book for you. Please let me know if you check it out! : )