In Search of Eden

Linda Nichols
Bethany House (2007)
ISBN 9780764201677
Reviewed by Kelli Glesige for Reader Views (3/07)

As a fifteen-year-old, the teenaged Miranda is forced to give up her newborn child for adoption by her mother without even knowing if the child is a boy or girl.  Now a mature adult, Miranda decides she will try to find some way to learn anything she can about the whereabouts of her long lost child.  The unfortunate event has haunted Miranda most of her life, for every child she sees might be the one she was forced to give away.

Now that her mother has died and Miranda is on her own, Aunt Bobbie feels it is only right to pass along to Miranda an envelope she has recently found containing a picture of the long lost child.  With only the whim of a clue, Miranda sets off for Abington, Virginia, to visit the area where her mother and Aunt Bobbie grew up.  It is here that Miranda learns of her mother’s very cruel and difficult childhood.  She also finds herself being trailed by Joseph North, the chief of police, for Miranda appears to Joseph to be someone up to no good.  Joseph has spent a great deal of his time searching for “The Travelers” who are deceiving the townsfolk and stealing their money, and Joseph believes Miranda may be involved in some way.

Joseph has had a difficult life, for his true love Sarah is stolen away from him by his brother David while Joseph is away, and Sarah becomes pregnant with David’s child.  Joseph is away when the child is born, but when he returns, Joseph learns David and Sarah now have a baby girl.  Joseph is the perfect uncle and despite his pain, he loves the child dearly.  When David is involved in a life-threatening car accident, Joseph steps in and becomes the perfect caregiver for Eden, the name given to the daughter of Sarah and David.  Eden loves her Uncle Joseph and wants to be a detective just like him.

Questions arise when Miranda mysteriously has a picture of Joseph’s niece in her billfold, but Joseph believes the picture must be his and that he has only inadvertently dropped the picture from his billfold.  Miranda is totally confused and seeks to find answers from the one mysterious individual Miranda’s mother trusted as a young girl and then later as an adult.

“In Search of Eden” is an enthralling story of a young woman desperately searching for her child and the circumstances she found her mother endured as a child and later as an adult.  The story is heartbreaking at times, but it is also a story of finding peace, happiness and acceptance.  I enjoyed reading this work by Linda Nichols and recommend it highly to others who enjoy Christian novels.  This story is definitely a five star.  It will tug at the heartstrings of mothers everywhere.

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