This family memoir describes a woman’s search for her birth mother. Despite all Heather’s efforts while growing up, the truth was denied. She invented macabre reasons for the total secrecy, so frightening she kept them hidden.
Searching for Grace combines Heather’s vivid and often amusing memories of childhood in 1920s London with the story of two young people whose love is threatened by lies and hypocrisy.
Years later, living in New Zealand, Heather finallly receives a letter confirming the identity of her birth mother. As the story opens in 1975 she is battling immigration officials to grant her special permission to travel to England to prove her identity. Without a birth certificate this is no easy task.
When Heather meets her birth family extraordinary facts emerge – and what Heather and Carol find is that appearances are one thing, truth another.
In the early 1980s Heather began to record her memories, but as she entered the shadowy realm of Alzheimer’s, her daughter Carol took over, continuing to tie together many of the missing strands of their story.
To read my review for Searching for Grace click here
You can purchase Searching for Grace by clicking the following links:
Or via Carol’s publishers by sending an email to info@SteeleRoberts.co.nz
More details are available on Carol’s website carolhenderson.co.nz
This book was a great compulsive read.
While “Searching For Grace” tells the true story of one woman’s search for her birth mother, many readers may find echoes of their own family’s stories and possibly their own well kept family secrets.
Outwardly Edwardian and Victorian society had strict codes of behaviour, but before modern methods of birth control were discovered, many women from all walks of life had to deal with unwanted pregnancies. Whether readers will sympathise with this High Society mother’s solution to her particular circumstance, or whether they will be shocked, remains to be seen.
What I can say is that you will find this well researched and beautifully written account of a woman’s search over many years for her birth mother, intriguing and hard to put down.
Get hold of this book, and settle down for a roller coaster ride; you will be taken from present day New Zealand back to early 1900s England, a stopover in South Australia, (where Grace was the wife of the Governor of Sth Australia) You will meet a child longing to meet her birthmother, a loyal governess, a beautiful millionairess, several of her lovers, doctors with much to hide, members of the Royal family, a gauche but charming Kiwi artist and other characters and scenes that will seem to have stepped from the pages of fiction. But make no mistake, photographs, letters and papers give ample testament to the authenticity of “Searching For Grace.”
Whatever your circumstances, this book will give you insights into the times, laughter and tears that many of our forebears lived through. You may even find new reasons to be thankful for something you may have taken for granted – your own family.
Nicely written, sounds like you really enjoyed it