Wednesday, March 11, 2015

Just Jennifer


The Daughter by Jane Shemilt


Physician Jenny Malcolm feels she has it all: a strong family practice with loyal patients, three healthy, well-adjusted teenagers and a neurosurgeon husband who is at the top of his field.  One night Jenny’s fifteen-year-old daughter Naomi doesn’t come home after her school play and the life Jenny thinks is so perfect begins to show cracks, cracks that go all the way to the foundation and eventually making Jenny realizes she mightn’t have been as astute and aware where her family is concerned as she should have been.  The police launch a nationwide search and Jenny is certain Naomi was kidnapped, but as secrets about Naomi, her twin brothers and even her father begin to emerge, her disappearance takes on new dimensions and Jenny must face a Naomi she never knew, a Naomi who may have just walked away from her life.  The narrative shifts between the time just before and after Naomi’s disappearance to a year later and a Jenny who is still trying to piece together that night, what led to the events and what shape her life will take from here.  Jenny is determined not to let her daughter go, even as painful truths are revealed.  Strands of lives are teased out and tangled together, creating a truth that is even more tragic and heart wrenching than imagined.  

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