Customer Reviews

Shadow Baby - Horatio Hornblower Adventures

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I was adopted as a child, at the age of six (both parents killed in a car accident when I was four). I found this story of two orphaned children to be well worth reading. I enjoyed it more than another book by the same author, Hidden Lives. What I enjoyed most was looking at how the two mothers felt about their illegitimate children, and how the two daughters felt about having been abandoned. It explores all four of these women's lives and feelings for the entire course of all four women's lives. I was fortunate to remember my real mother, and have people tell me about my real parents. This book made me reflect on the various possiblities of how different parents and children react to adoption, and I thought it was quite realistically done, even though all four women's cases were drastically different from my own. It is a book that really explores lives and feelings.

This book keeps the reader enthralled in its content. It tells parallel stories of two abandoned babies,searching for the missing link. A curiosity that only their real mother can provide.Kept in tune with their adventures, you will be surprised at how it comes together in the end.

Shadow Baby is the story of two illegitimate daughters - one in contemporary Scotland, the other a century earlier, in the north of England. It's very compulsive reading, a brilliantly told story that looks at the relationships between mothers and daughters and the social attitudes and economic conditions that can have a profound impact on our personal choices and everyday lives. The characters are beautifully drawn and easy to identify with. I'd recommend it to anyone who enjoys writers like Margaret Atwood, Carol Shields, Margaret Drabble.