Bringing Maggie Home Book Review

I was excited to get to read another book by Kim Vogel Sawyer because I have enjoyed other books from her.  Bringing Maggie Home: A Novel by Kim Vogel Sawyer was next in my pile to read and I had to finish it before posting the review.  I was trying to find time to read and it seemed to always be taking a back seat to other things but I finally finished the book and enjoyed the amazing progress through the book to bring Maggie home.

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 turns her back on her three-year old sister Maggie and the young girl disappears.  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?

Hazel has grown up with a big secret that she lost her little sister and it has changed the way that she lived her whole life.  Her parents told her she needed to forget all about it and burnt all of her sisters things but she hid some pictures.  Hazel grew up and was very overprotective of her daughter, Margaret Diane, which caused her daughter to revolt and be a lot less loving to her own daughter, Meghan, because she didn't want to put the same pressure on that she grew up with.  Seventy years later, Meghan finds the box of picture and learns of the long lost sister.  Meghan works with her friend, Sean, to try to find Maggie and bring her back to her grandmother.  The search and process helps heal the family and brings answers to the long family history.  It was interesting to read all about the family dynamics and see how one person's decisions changes all of the other decisions of the family.  It is amazing to see how one person's actions directly affect all the other people they contact.  It makes you rethink decisions that you make in your life.  The only problem that I had with the book was that although they were trying to bring Margaret Diane and Meghan to God but they were pushing it frequently more then needed to because it was obviously discussed through wanting to go to church and more.  I wish there were a few things that were left out that would have made the book faster moving and smoother but I still enjoyed the whole story searching for Maggie.  I hope that you check out this book and enjoy it for yourself.

**I was given a copy of the book for my review but all opinions here are honest and my own.