Finding Georgina

January 22, 2018
A mother finds her daughter who was kidnapped 14 years earlier in the satisfying latest from Faulkner (What Makes a Family). Harper Broussard is a New Orleans veterinarian living with her teenage daughter, Jojo, in the ancestral home inherited by her ex-husband, Remy. There have been times over the past 14 years that Harper has believed that she’s seen Georgina, her oldest daughter who was kidnapped when she was two, and now she becomes certain a teenage girl working in a local coffee shop is her long-lost daughter. When police question the girl’s mother, Sharon Kohen, she confesses to kidnapping Georgina, whom she initially believed was her deceased child and then came to love as if she were her own. While Harper is elated that her daughter has been cared for all these years, she is disturbed that Georgina doesn’t remember her and has been going by the name of Lilla Kohen, the name of Sharon’s dead child. Georgina, an intelligent, independent young woman, is devastated by Sharon’s betrayal and thrust into the arms of a family she can’t recall. Harper struggles with her overprotective nature and her Catholic faith, which is at odds with Georgina’s Jewish upbringing. Through multiple points of view, Faulkner crafts a cast of flawed, realistic characters, and the story’s intense emotion will resonate with readers.

February 1, 2018
Harper Broussard has been searching for her daughter ever since Georgina was kidnapped from a Mardi Gras parade as a toddler. Harper's search caused a tremendous strain that ended her marriage to Remy and caused her younger daughter, Jojo, to feel competition with her missing older sister. But 14 years later, while getting coffee, Harper spots Georgina. After a DNA test, and a confession from her kidnapper, Georgina is brought home to the Broussard's house, and her kidnapper is sent to jail. The story is told in alternating points of view between Harper, Lilla (as Georgina was renamed by her captors), and Jojo. As Georgina returns to her family, Harper has high expectations for the family dynamic, but Harper may not have a grip on the reality of what a perfect family means. Faulkner (What Makes a Family, 2017) deftly touches on issues of trust, love, the pain of loss, and renewal through each character's eyes in this emotionally charged and thought-provoking novel that will pull at readers' heartstrings. This deserves a special place in library collections, particularly those where Heather Gudenkauf is popular.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)