Thursday, October 16, 2014

Patty Pick for 10/16/14 is "Little Mercies" by Heather Gudenkauf




"Little Mercies" by Heather Gudenkauf starts off with the chaos in the day of a normal family. Ellen and Adam have three children and busy lives. They are running separate ways to get their days started. On her way to work, Ellen receives a disturbing call from one of the children she oversees as a social worker with the DHS. She rushes to their house with the police to try to get the children out of the dangerous situation. 
As  she works with the police to diffuse the situation, a distubance grows behind her in the neighborhood. As the sound of breaking glass reaches her ears, it dawns on Ellen that they are breaking into her car to rescue her infant daughter from the inferno it now is.
How did she forget that Avery is in there?
That starts this story of a terrible accident and the journey through the maze of social work and child abuse and leads us back to the original story of a family in crisis. 
While Ellen and Adams's lives are falling apart, Jenny stumbles into the life of Ellen's mother, Maudene. Maudene knows that Jenny is in trouble and can not stop herself from trying to help. Jenny, like many 10 year olds, wants her family back together. Her father is in jail and her mother has been missing for years. Jennny thinks her grandmother is close by and is determined to find her. 
As this family tradegy unfolds, you can see that there for the grace of God go all of us. We all make mistakes in our lives that we wish we could take back. Where will the mistakes that Jenny and Ellen make lead them? You will want to read this book n one sitting to find out. I enjoyed other Heather Gudenkauf books and this is another good one!

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