Review: What Was Mine by Helen Klein Ross

What Was Mine: A Novel by Helen Klein Ross

Gallery Books An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc., 2016

(Includes Readers Guide)

My Review (5 Stars: Loved it!)

The excellent book trailer (below) opens with the question:

“WHAT IF YOU TOOK A BABY AND GOT AWAY WITH IT?”

In What Was Mine, author Helen Klein Ross imagines the answer to that question and paints a picture for us to imagine with her.
As you might imagine, lives are devastated, but there is much more to this story.

Lucy Wakefield, tried but could not have a baby.  Her marriage failed as a result of it and she wasn’t approved for adoption.  One day Lucy is overcome with emotion and, almost against her own will, takes someone else’s four month old baby girl, to keep, love and raise as her own.  She changes the baby’s name to Mia.  When Mia is twenty-one, she learns the truth.  The mother she loves is not really her mother.

The author does an excellent job in presenting many sides of the story.  We hear from many people who are affected by this crime, as Lucy states in the second paragraph:

“I can’t tell my story straight.  I have to tell it in circles, likes rings of a tree that signify the passage of time.”

Chapters are interspersed with perspectives from various people in addition to Lucy and Mia.  We hear from Lucy’s ex-husband, Mia’s mother and father, Mia’s Chinese babysitter, Lucy’s sister, and others affected by Lucy’s actions.

What Was Mine is a very suspenseful and touching novel.

I would like to thank author, Helen Klein Ross, the She Reads Organization and the publisher, Gallery Books An Imprint of Simon & Schuster,  for providing me with this book, free of charge, for review.

First Paragraph

Kidnap.  Parse the word.  It ought to mean lying down with baby goats.  Words can be so misleading.

Book Trailer – What Was Mine

(Link: What Was Mine – Book Trailer – UTube)

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Evb4AzzvoXs]

About The Author (from the book jacket)

HELEN KLEIN ROSS is a poet and novelist whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The  Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, and The Iowa Review, where it won the 2014 Iowa Review Award in poetry.  She graduated from Cornell University and received an MFA from The New School.  Helen lives with her husband in New York City and Salisbury, Connecticut.

What Others Are Saying

What Was Mine: A Novel by Helen Klein Ross is one of She Reads’ Books of Winter.  Visit SheReads’ page to read more about their winter selections  @ 2016 She Reads’ Books of Winter.

Disclosure of Material Connection: 

I received this book free from the publisher, Gallery Books An Imprint of Simon & Schuster, as a member of the She Reads Network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.