The Prodigal Cousin

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Summary: From The Calvert Cousins series
Review: The first woman in sixteen months that reminds Sam Lockwood that he is a man just happens to be his mother's daughter. Never mind they are not biologically related, the irony is almost too much. Sam only came to Bardill's Ridge to meet his birth mother Eliza Calvert. When he and his two daughters arrive at the bed and breakfast, the Calverts extend a warm welcome to the Lockwoods, little suspecting the secrets that will shortly come to light. He desperately wants his daughters to be accepted by Eliza even if she chooses to reject him.

Eliza's adopted daughter Molly had a rough childhood, paying penance as an adult for painful choices made years ago. She cannot have children and as she watches her adopted cousins marrying and having children, feels like she will never have the family they each are building. Then Sam arrives with three daughters, widowed, searching for a family for the girls in case something happens to him. But at twenty-five, Molly is too old to accept a new brother. Despite Molly's determination to disregard her feelings for her mother's son, however, love seems determined to find a way.

Author Anna Adams deftly captures the ironies and emotional conundrums of adoption situations In THE PRODIGAL COUSIN. The need for family, for acceptance and for connections creates powerful motivation for Sam and his daughters to fit in with the Calverts. Molly's innate feeling of alienation captures the need for self-acceptance and self-forgiveness. Birth mother Eliza becomes a stunningly memorable secondary character with her necessary losses and heart rendering choices. Indeed, Adams boldly portrays the rejection and broken trust that makes revealing painful truths a life shattering, and life altering experience for all concerned. THE PRODIGAL COUSIN comes highly recommended.