Review: Somebody Else’s Daughter

TITLE: Somebody Else’s Daughter
AUTHOR: Elizabeth Brundage
PUB DATE: July 2008

I have to say a big THANK YOU to Elizabeth Brundage for sending me this book to read and review. I really enjoyed it and had a hard time putting it down. This is Elizabeth’s second novel. Its about failing marriages, affairs, love, adoption, drugs, death and murder.

The book starts out with Nate, the drug addicted father and Cat, the even more addicted mother and girlfriend. Cat gives birth to Willa. When she is a few months old they realize that can’t care for her even though they love her. They are both young and addicted to drugs. They decide to give Willa up for private adoption. As one of the conditions to the adoption they drive Willa from San Francisco to Massachusettes. The couple is the Goldings and they are a wealthy couple. Shortly after handing Willa over to them Cat dies of Aids in their driveway.

After handing Willa over and dealing with Cat’s death Nate sits in the car and writes a leter to Willa in hopes that the Goldings will give to her on her 16th birthday.

The book picks up sixteen years later in the same town, Berkshire. All the families are connected to the prep school, Pioneer. Nate who has turned is live around has returned to Berkshire as the new teacher and struggling writer. He discovers Willa is in his writting class.

We discover that the Goldings are a wealthy family who have built their fortune on a secret profession. The head master jack Heath lives a dangerous life. All the characters lives start to come together in this small town and slowly all the secrets are revealed. Some of the secrets are good and some prove to be deadly.