Heather

Rating:
Summary: a mother's love
Review: I loved this story! It shows how a mother's love lives on in her even when she gives up her baby for adoption years ago, and how it moves her to seek to be reunited with her baby. This story and these people are very real, and I know a lot of women have lived through this, but even if you haven't you'll love experiencing it the way a woman does who's been through it.

Rating:
Summary: fast paced and well done
Review: Ruth knows there is something wrong. She can almost see it happening all over again. Her daughter Heather, whom she gave up for adoption, is in trouble...possibly reliving the exact same mistakes that Ruth made. What can she do? She doesn't have a clue where Heather is, what she looks like, and what kind of trouble she is really in. The adoption agency can get a message to the family...what if there were some kind of genetic disease Heather needs to be warned of?

Ruth finds out that Heather - Marie she is now named- is indeed in trouble, but the adoptive parents want nothing to do with her, want none of her offer to help. Hiring a PI, Ruth discovers that Heather - Marie has run away. Following her premonitions, her visions, Ruth heads out to search highway 80 across the state of Pennsylvania for the girl who is missing. She finds memories of the girl she used to be and returns home highly distraught. Her husband knows something is up and pressures her to tell him. But Ruth has deprived him of children for having gone through this ordeal with giving up her baby. She never has told him about it and in fact, she lied to him, telling him she couldn't have children. Is it too much for their marriage to endure? Will she ever find Heather - Marie and if she does will the 19-year-old girl ever forgive her? Will she be able to forgive herself?

The plot is fast paced and well done, providing some good twists and turns as one might expect in real life. It is a heart touching story that is entertaining and life enriching to read. The author is well versed in the art of portraying humanity. I do hope this male author doesn't have all of his female characters driving so badly as Ruth and that her characterization simply called for it. It is demonstrative of his writing talent that he nailed the female gender so well in the other aspects of his characters. The handful of typos I spotted were easy to overlook as the satisfaction of diving into the alternative reality of fiction was infinitely a greater impact on my mind. Look for more from Wells Earl Draughon!

Review by Heather Froeschl of www.BookReview.com

Rating:
Summary: An appreciation for great story writing.
Review: When I first began reading "Heather" by Wells Earl Draughon, I was immediately 'sucked up' into the plight of his protagonist, Ruth. The realism that Draughon vividly creates in both his characters and their environment is impressive. (Being from New England, I can attest that although a work of fiction, his descriptions of the Boston area, weather, etc., are terrifically real, giving the reader an accurate 'feel' for the region.)

As the story progressed, with it's twists and turns, I became engrossed in the story, wanting to find out the 'whys, hows, and whos'. Draughon's additional characters possess the same realism as his protagonist, and I was equally impressed with his ability to make me feel like these were ordinary people, caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

I don't recall any 'slow spots' in the story. As a matter of fact, it only picked up in its intensity the further I got into the book.

Heather is a story about people, trust, broken trust, relationships, the dynamics which make up family-both conventional and non, the very real and often controversial issues that we're faced with, and the consequences of choices we made yesterday, living with and often eating us up, today. It is a wonderfully told story of inner conflict and ultimate resolution, not only with Ruth, the story's main character, but with the other major players in this captivating story. Without divulging too much, Draughon's twist ending is to be commended, as it not only surprised me, but left me with a feeling of hope and an appreciation for great story writing.

I'd recommend "Heather" highly.

Rating:
Summary: An appreciation for great story writing.
Review: When I first began reading "Heather" by Wells Earl Draughon, I was immediately 'sucked up' into the plight of his protagonist, Ruth. The realism that Draughon vividly creates in both his characters and their environment is impressive. (Being from New England, I can attest that although a work of fiction, his descriptions of the Boston area, weather, etc., are terrifically real, giving the reader an accurate 'feel' for the region.)

As the story progressed, with it's twists and turns, I became engrossed in the story, wanting to find out the 'whys, hows, and whos'. Draughon's additional characters possess the same realism as his protagonist, and I was equally impressed with his ability to make me feel like these were ordinary people, caught up in extraordinary circumstances.

I don't recall any 'slow spots' in the story. As a matter of fact, it only picked up in its intensity the further I got into the book.

Heather is a story about people, trust, broken trust, relationships, the dynamics which make up family-both conventional and non, the very real and often controversial issues that we're faced with, and the consequences of choices we made yesterday, living with and often eating us up, today. It is a wonderfully told story of inner conflict and ultimate resolution, not only with Ruth, the story's main character, but with the other major players in this captivating story. Without divulging too much, Draughon's twist ending is to be commended, as it not only surprised me, but left me with a feeling of hope and an appreciation for great story writing.

I'd recommend "Heather" highly.

Rating:
Summary: You'll laugh, you'll cry
Review: You'll laugh and you'll cry as you follow the path of Ruth, a woman who gave up her illegitimate baby at the age of nineteen. Years later, she's decided to try and find her daughter. After she learns Heather has left her adoptive parents' home, Ruth scours the streets of first New York, and then Boston, following her own similar path when she had run away from home all those years ago. Ruth's marriage is in shambles once she confesses the truth of Heather to her husband, Jack, with whom she's refused to have children. At this point in the story, I truly felt there was no way Jack would forgive Ruth, who selfishly kept the truth away from him while she fought her own inner demons and her guilt about giving up her baby.

But once Ruth and Heather are united everything becomes right in their world. Soon Heather will have her own baby, and Ruth and Jack will be grandparents.

This story hit me hard; right in the gut. I felt every bit of Ruth's pain, and Jack's anger and sadness. Delving deep inside Ruth one can see how traumatized she'd been for years at the loss of her only child. But the sadness and anger were warranted, and the book well worth reading to the end, where the sun finally shines down on Ruth, Jack and Heather.

Not only is this a one-night read story, I was absolutely impressed by the fact that if I hadn't known a man had written HEATHER, I would have thought it had been written by a woman. Bravo, Mr. Draughon!