A Plain & Fancy Christmas
Cynthia Keller
Ballantine, Oct 25 2011, $16.00
ISBN: 9780345528759
Gil and pregnant Nina Lawrence were traveling through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania when she went into labor. She was rushed to Lancaster’s Griffin Hospital where she gave birth to her daughter Ellie before the trio continued on to New York. Also in the hospital giving birth is Amish Leah King who with her husband Isaac names their child Rachel too.
However, Nurse Violet Thompson realized that her husband the physician to both families mixed up the babies. To save his career and his life she persuades Paul to do nothing. Now over three decades later, he is dead and she is dying with a need to cleanse her conscience. She dispatches the same letter and proof to the two adult switched at birth babies.
Both are hesitant about meeting their biological parents, but Ellie makes the plunge first. The Amish welcome her especially her birth mother which makes the widowed single mom Rachel jealous as she never pleased her critical mother. Accompanied by her daughter Katie, she heads to Manhattan to meet her affluent biological parents, who welcome her warmly, but Rachel feels like a fish on dry land.
Although switched at birth is not a new premise (see The Wrong Child by Patricia Kay), Cynthia Keller provides an interesting spin to the nurturing vs. naturing debate with the cultural differences between the two families. Aptly titled, the cast is strong as the parents and other members of the families and friends are kind, welcoming and caring while the switched offspring adapt differently to meeting their biological families and the culture they should have been part of.
Harriet Klausner
Cynthia Keller
Ballantine, Oct 25 2011, $16.00
ISBN: 9780345528759
Gil and pregnant Nina Lawrence were traveling through Lancaster County, Pennsylvania when she went into labor. She was rushed to Lancaster’s Griffin Hospital where she gave birth to her daughter Ellie before the trio continued on to New York. Also in the hospital giving birth is Amish Leah King who with her husband Isaac names their child Rachel too.
However, Nurse Violet Thompson realized that her husband the physician to both families mixed up the babies. To save his career and his life she persuades Paul to do nothing. Now over three decades later, he is dead and she is dying with a need to cleanse her conscience. She dispatches the same letter and proof to the two adult switched at birth babies.
Both are hesitant about meeting their biological parents, but Ellie makes the plunge first. The Amish welcome her especially her birth mother which makes the widowed single mom Rachel jealous as she never pleased her critical mother. Accompanied by her daughter Katie, she heads to Manhattan to meet her affluent biological parents, who welcome her warmly, but Rachel feels like a fish on dry land.
Although switched at birth is not a new premise (see The Wrong Child by Patricia Kay), Cynthia Keller provides an interesting spin to the nurturing vs. naturing debate with the cultural differences between the two families. Aptly titled, the cast is strong as the parents and other members of the families and friends are kind, welcoming and caring while the switched offspring adapt differently to meeting their biological families and the culture they should have been part of.
Harriet Klausner
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