LauraD’s review of Sister’s Choice by Emilie Richards
Women’s Fiction released by Mira 1 Jul 08
Emilie Richards is a prolific author of what is frequently referred to as “women’s fiction”. Along with others such as Maeve Binchy and Anne Rivers Siddons, she writes novels that usually revolve around a family drama of some kind, and frequently are centered around a very strong sense of location. In this case, the Shenandoah Valley – Sister’s Choice is actually book 6 in Ms. Richards’ Shenandoah Album series. I was testing it as a standalone, as I’d never read Ms. Richards before.
Jamie Dunkirk is the younger of two sisters, and the single mother of two young children. She’s also almost completed her architecture studies. Sister Kendra Taylor is the more responsible, married but unable to have children. She still carries some resentment for having to help raise Jamie, and for Jamie’s lost years of addiction. Kendra and her husband Isaac have a cabin in Virginia, and it’s during a weekend together at the cabin that Jamie offers to be a surrogate parent for Kendra and Isaac.
Kendra agrees almost immediately, and soon Jamie is carrying her sister’s child. She’s also overseeing the building of a large home on Kendra’s property, raising her two kids, dating the contractor, getting sick and not telling anyone, and becoming fast friends with the contractor’s grandmother Grace.
I’ve got to admit, I spent most of the book wanting to slap Kendra.* She simply never let Jamie forget that Jamie had been a screw-up at one time, never stopped trying to be Jamie’s mother. I have a big problem with holier-than-thou types, and Kendra wears a homemade halo. Jamie is quite self confident for someone who is choosing to gestate and give birth as a form of penance. Despite her past drug problem, she’s the mom who cooks healthy meals for the kids while letting them play outside and get dirty. At one point she gives Kendra a reality check on parenting that made me want to send the book to my S-I-L. (And I don’t even have kids.)
There is a lot going on in “Sister’s Choice” besides the surrogacy. Jamie also has a romance, but that’s probably the least interesting relationship in the book. We get a trip back in time with Grace, learning about her marriage. Of course, there is also the parent/child relationship between Jamie and her girls. There is a lot in “Sister’s Choice”, maybe a little bit too much. For me, I think less might have been more.
Emilie Richards was at one time, or perhaps still is, a family counselor. The multitude of issues and family dynamics within “Sister’s Choice” are certainly meaty enough for several counselors to set up practice in the fictional town Ms. Richards’ characters live in. The ending isn’t a total HEA, so be forewarned. After all, this isn’t a romance.
If you are a fan of women’s fiction set in the south, you’ll probably grade it higher me.
*Kendra has her own book in the Shenandoah Album series, “Lover’s Knot”. Just FYI.
Grade: C
With nine years and a turbulent childhood between them, Kendra and Jamie have never been storybook sisters. After a long estrangement, they’ve finally begun to heal their hurts and forge a new bond.
Now Jamie is offering a gift Kendra has long since given up hoping for, the fondest wish of her heart—a baby. Already raising two young girls on her own, Jamie wants to become a gestational surrogate for Kendra and her husband, Isaac, giving birth to a child the husband and wife have created together. Despite some lingering misgivings about her once-wayward younger sister’s commitment, Kendra agrees, and soon Jamie is pregnant.
In addition to this amazing gift of life, Jamie has designed a new house for Kendra and Isaac and is overseeing its construction on Isaac’s ancestral property along the Shenandoah River, with the help of Cash Rosslyn, one of the most attractive men Jamie has known. By giving her sister both a home and a family, Jamie hopes to prove to Kendra that she deserves absolution for her past mistakes. But when a medical crisis threatens her health and her promising new relationship with Cash, Jamie learns that the most difficult choice in her life is yet to come—and its cost may be beyond calculation.
