Wednesday 12 August 2015

Book Review - Pretty Baby by Mary Kubica

Amazon UK
Title: Pretty Baby
Author: Mary Kubica
Format reviewed: Ebook
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: MIRA
Publication Date: 13th August 2015 
Rating: 5 Stars


A chance encounter

She sees the teenage girl on the train platform, standing in the pouring rain, clutching an infant in her arms. She boards a train and is whisked away. But she can't get the girl out of her head…

An act of kindness

Heidi has always been charitable but her family are horrified when she returns home with a young woman named Willow and her baby in tow. Dishevelled and homeless, this girl could be a criminal - or worse. But despite the family's objections, Heidi offers them refuge.

A tangled web of lies

As Willow begins to get back on her feet, disturbing clues into her past starts to emerge. Now Heidi must question if her motives for helping the stranger are unselfish or rooted in her own failures.

I can't put my finger on exactly what is is about this book, but I feel like I absorbed the story. It seems to have seeped into my mind and I couldn't stop thinking about it while I was at work.  The content doesn't make light or overly pleasant reading at times, but yet I was compelled to know more, and to keep reading. 

The book has 3 completely different perspectives, Heidi, Chris and Willow. Heidi and Chris between them are telling the story from the present, with their differing views on the situation, but Willow's chapters are about her past leading up to the current day, including her frankly harrowing childhood. 

Heidi, works for a charity which teaches literacy to poverty stricken people, of all creeds and colours, and also does other things. She is struck by this young girl that she has seen a few times on the way to the train station, always trying to calm her baby, and looking like they may live on the streets. After Heidi can't get this girl out of her head, and she has seen them around Chicago a few times, she reaches out to the girl. 

Willow is a young girl, who is homeless, and has baby Ruby with her. She has nowhere to go and no one in the world to trust, so when Heidi reaches out to her, she is sceptical at first, and then accepts a small bit of help, and ends up staying with Heidi and her family for a few days. 

Chris is Heidi's husband, and although he is used to Heidi's soft hearted nature, he isn't too happy about having a young homeless girl and her baby staying in their house, for an undetermined amount of time. He isn't convinced at all about Willow, but he is also busy travelling around the country for work, and then there is also the tempting pretty girl he works with. He is the voice of reason in the book, but is often not heard. 

It was Willow's story that got completely under my skin, from the very first chapter of hers,  I wanted to know everything about her, unfortunately you need to be able to handle reading about some very tricky subjects, (which as a testament to Mary Kubica are written well, not sensationally, nor taking them lightly, just the right amount of detail). 

I purposely am being very vague as to the details in the book, as my advice would be just try this book, it will draw you in and you will lose track of the real world, while absorbed in this gripping fictional story.  I found it very interesting to see how all three stories were going to meet up to explain the current circumstances, and I could barely put the book down. 

Thanks you to MIRA and Netgalley for this review copy. This was my honest opinion. 

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