Finding Me by Kathryn Cushman
How would you react if you found out you’d been lied to your entire life? Would you run away and bury your head in the sand or dig deeper to discover the whole truth?
This is exactly what Kelli Huddleston faces upon her father’s death in Kathryn Cushman’s newest novel, Finding Me.
Kelli uncovers photographs of her father and another family while cleaning out his papers. Digging further, she finds newspaper clippings of a boating accident killing a young father and his infant daughter.
Was the story he told her of a fire claiming her mother and siblings total fiction?
Armed with a picture and the name of a town in Tennessee, Kelli jumps in her car and heads across the country to find herself and the family she thought died long ago.
But will it cost her everything?
Finding Me is a heartfelt story of forgiveness and redemption. Kelli must journey through many emotions to get to the other side and find herself.
Kathryn Cushman does an awesome job setting this story up. I instantly liked Kelli and wanted her to succeed in finding out the truth. The rest of the characters were also well-rounded. I loved Kenmore as he became her confidant. Miss Birdyshaw was a fun character, adding humor throughout. I felt the story started off a bit slow, but I soon found it tough to put down!
I give Finding Me four out of five stars.
Come and join Kelli on her journey of discovering what she lost, but more importantly what she finds as the story ends!
You will be blessed.
**Book has been provided courtesy of Baker Publishing Group and Graf-Martin Communications, Inc.
Contest!!
I would like to give away my copy of Finding Me. The contest rules are simple—leave a comment on the blog and you will be entered. Bonus entry– if you leave a comment AND share this post on Facebook you will get two entries (tag me on Facebook or let me know in the comments). Contest closes Saturday, May 30th at midnight. Enter now! (Open to residents of the USA and Canada only.)
I was intrigued by the title of the book and your review of “Finding Me” by Kathryn Cushman, as my own experience of finding myself is similar to the character of Kelli. In June of 2001, at the age of 36, I learned that I had been adopted. My father had died just two months earlier, and my mother disappeared shortly thereafter for reasons unknown to me at the time. I felt alone and abandoned; left trying to make sense of it all when I ran into a friend of my parents, whom I hadn’t seen in over 25 years, at the neighborhood ice cream store. She usually went to another store, and Ben and I usually went on another day of the week, but there we were. I knew God’s providence was in our “chance” encounter the moment I saw her.
As we reminisced about the good old days, she mentioned that she had known my parents before when she was my brother’s first grade teacher. She recalled the day she’d first met me after I had been adopted at the age of 3 1/2 when my parent’s brought me up to the school to introduced me as their new daughter. She kept on talking but I didn’t hear a thing after that. I felt as though the bottom had dropped out of my life. So many questions arose: Why had I been adopted? Who were my real parents? Why did they give me up? Did I have any brothers and sisters? When I looked in the mirror, whose face did I see? Was that why I never felt like I belonged? When my son was born he had chocolate brown eyes, where did they come from? When I looked at him I no longer saw my father, but a stranger. These questions raced through my mind when she stopped talking. She had seen my face go white and realized I hadn’t known.
She couldn’t stop apologizing, but I knew that somehow God’s fingerprints were all over it. I reassured her that I didn’t blame her for letting it slip, but at the same time I was in shock. Even so, I knew it was in God’s perfect timing for me to discover the truth when I did. After that, my husband and I worked to discover the identities of my birth parents. It felt as though God was dropping bread crumbs as we tracked my birth family down, and only a month later I met my natural mother (my son had her eyes) and 10 of my siblings. After having been raised in a small family with only the four of us, meeting them all should have been overwhelming, but seeing myself in their faces, receiving unconditional love and feeling accepted left me overjoyed. For the first time in my life I felt like I belonged.
Wow! That’s amazing Dana. God’s hand certainly was in your encounter with your friend. I’m so glad you were able to meet your birth family. Thanks so much for sharing your story. God bless you!
I need Beta Readers to read chapters of Fireflies of Switchmore Creek as they’re written. I need people who can give constructive criticism, critique, encouragement and prayer. They are essential to the progress of the book, and I’d love for you to be one of them. Contact me on here, via facebook messenger (Dana Lynn Feero), or by email dlfeero@gmail.com. Thanks and God bless you!
Wow looks like another amazing book.. Dar you have some great connections here… Good for you my dear!
It was a great book. I enjoyed it!