My Bookshelf: Bringing Maggie Home by Kim Vogel Sawyer

Decades of loss, an unsolved mystery, and a rift spanning three generations.

Hazel DeFord is a woman haunted by her past. While berry picking in a blackberry thicket in 1943, ten-year-old Hazel momentarily turned her back on her three-year-old sister, Maggie, and the young girl disappeared.

Almost seventy years later, the mystery remains unsolved, and the secret guilt Hazel carries has alienated her from her daughter, Diane, who can’t understand her mother’s overprotectiveness and near paranoia. While Diane resents her mother’s inexplicable eccentricities, her daughter, Meghan—a cold case agent—cherishes her grandmother’s lavish attention and affection.

When a traffic accident forces Meghan to take a six-week leave of absence to recover, all three generations of DeFord women find themselves unexpectedly under the same roof. Meghan knows she will have to act as a mediator between the two headstrong and contentious women. But when they uncover Hazel’s painful secret, will Meghan also be able to use her investigative prowess to solve the family mystery and help both women recover all that’s been lost?

 

Bringing Maggie Home is a stand-alone novel, and is a story I wasn’t entirely sure about going in. Although I have read many of Kim Vogel Sawyer’s books in the past, and really enjoyed them, but I wasn’t sure how I felt about the plotline of this story going in. However, I was captivated with the mystery surrounding Maggie’s disappearance from the very first couple of chapters, and I soon found myself fighting for the relationship between Hazel and Diane as well. Honestly, I think the brokenness between the two of them was one of the best aspects of this story, because I loved reading about the way their relationship ebbed and flowed.

The differences between Hazel, Diane, and Meghan were another aspect of this novel that kept my attention, as it was always interesting to see how each one would react to every situation they were faced with. There are so many wonderful plot twists in this story, which not only kept me interested, but also were another way to really understand the uniqueness of each woman’s character. I have to confess, Meghan is probably my favorite, although I would love to have Hazel for a grandmother. While she may have a few overprotective tendencies, she is also just the sweetest woman ever, and her relationship with Meghan proves she is a wonderful grandma.

All in all, I really loved this story, and I’m very glad I got the opportunity to review it. There were just so many aspects of this novel that made it that much more enjoyable, and I absolutely loved the ending. Kim did an amazing job, and I cannot imagine not giving this book all five bookshelves. It has also found a place on my all-time favorites list, and I highly recommend it to anyone looking for a heartwarming novel full of faith, family, and long-awaited homecomings.

Happy reading!

I received a copy of this novel through the Litfuse Publicity group in exchange for only my honest review.

To see where I’m linking up, check out my Where I Party page.

All credit for the italicized synopsis goes to Kim Vogel Sawyer and Waterbrook Publishing.