Always a Mother by Linda Warren
Always a Mother by Linda Warren
June 2008
Harlequin Super Romance
ISBN: 978-0373714995
www.lindawarren.net
At eighteen, Claire and Dean were already planning their future. Until they suddenly found themselves parents. With Dean on the road pursuing a football career, raising their daughters became Claire’s first priority and full-time job. Now, with the girls grown, she can finally pursue her long-deferred dream of going to college.
Then she gets the news: she’s going to be a mother again.
Coming to terms with her midlife pregnancy means confronting her hopes, fears and choices she’s made. Through twenty-five years of joy, struggle and near tragedy, the one constant was Claire’s love for Dean. Is that love strong enough to weather the biggest crisis of their marriage and help them embrace the future-together?
This book begs you to contemplate a huge question. When you have the chance to have your dream after years of sacrifice for family, would you put it on hold again for “mid-life” baby? I think that for most people, it would be a no brainer. Have the baby. Give up the dream. Others might say that a woman in her 40’s should be able to follow her dream – whatever means necessary.
Linda Warren doesn’t make the decision all that easy for Claire. Through a great use of letters between Claire and Dean as a gateway into the past, we see the struggles and sacrifices the family goes through during their twenty-five year marriage. By putting family first, Claire’s dream of college continually got pushed to the wayside. And now… It might get pushed aside again. In many ways, I found it heartbreaking, but I like that Dean and Claire discover they have quite an emotional support network with their family.
I highly recommend Always a Mother. Like many of Linda’s books, it enforces the power of family.
- Reviewed by Sarah Schroeder
