Parting gifts

by Charlotte Vale Allen

From back cover: "When Kyra Latimer loses her husband to a freak accident in Manhattan, she can't imagine how she'll be able to move into the future without him. But on the day of his funeral, the unimaginable happens. A young woman, with a small boy in tow, shows up at Kyra's home, claiming to be the child Kyra surrendered for adoption some twenty-odd years before. Refusing to accept the truth-that Kyra cannot possibly be her mother-Jennifer Cullen insists on leaving her three-year-old son, Jesse, with his "grandmother". Touched by the boy's visible neglect, Kyra agrees to keep Jesse. And Kyra takes on a new role-as mother. As it turns out, Jesse is no ordinary child, and Kyra is no ordinary mother. In the course of their life together, Kyra and Jesse flourish and flounder in unanticipated ways. Until, finally, Kyra is forced to confront an impossible choice: whether or not to honour the life-or-death decision of her adopted son."