The Mother's Day Garden

By Kimberly Cates

Book Overview

An ordinary woman makes an extraordinary discovery and gets a second chance to follow her dreams in this heartwarming novel from award-winning storyteller Kimberly Cates. Parenthood behind her, her only daughter off to college, Hannah O'Connell should be enjoying the peace of an empty home, and time with her husband, Sam. But a miraculous arrival, an abandoned baby girl, comes into their lives--a precious infant with the power to put the unspoken strains in their marriage into sharp focus. Clashing with Sam over caring for little Ellie, Hannah takes a chance on her lifelong wish for a home filled with the laughter and joys of children. Sam needs only to look at Hannah's garden--where, years ago, she hoped to plant a lilac bush for each of her children still to be--to know he cannot keep her love for Ellie from blooming. But will a shattering secret from Hannah's past push them to the breaking point? Hannah will risk everything on the hope that love is enough for them all.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1476727619
• ISBN13: 9781476727615
• Release Date: October 2012
• Publisher: Gallery Books
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.9" x 7.9"

Customer Reviews

emotional look at a person in trouble

With her daughter attending college, Hannah O'Connell, recovering from a hysterectomy, feels less a woman. She escapes to a happier time over a decade ago when her loving spouse Sam and their child gave her a special Mother's Day gift of a garden containing three lilac bushes. The number represented the members of their family. Hannah wanted more children, but alas no more ever came. Her problem with the past is that she also recalls her ugliest incident from her teen days that she has hid from her spouse. Sam fears that he lost Hannah as she rejects him more each day, but rather than reach out to her, Sam begins to hide his hurt as he learned to do in an abusive childhood. Hannah finds an abandoned baby and believes that the infant has saved her life. Sam supports her quest to become the baby's foster parent. As the O'Connells struggle to save their teetering relationship, Hannah's high school sweetheart Tony Blake has returned. He wants Hannah back and will use the baby as a pawn to obtain his obsession. MOTHER'S DAY GARDEN is an emotional look at a person in trouble due to feelings of inadequacies that impact her relationships with her loved ones. The engrossing story line draws the audience into the problems confronting Hannah and Sam though Tony seems more of an unnecessary intruder. Readers who relish melodramatic relationship dramas will want to read Kimberly Cates powerfully angst-laden tale of a family in crisis.Harriet Klausner