Plain Roots

Literature & Fiction

synopsis

Synopsis

Taryn Clark thought she’d outgrown the need to find her birth mother. She thought that a successful career and a comfortable life in the city were enough to be happy. Did she really need to know about the woman who had given her away? Adopted at birth, her first few years were happy. But divorce, and then death, ripped their tiny family apart, and at the tender age of six, she entered the foster care system. Finding her roots seemed an impossible dream. But dreams are resilient. An unexpected discovery awakens old yearnings of belonging to a family, of being part of something bigger than herself. Finding the brief, ambiguous note from her birth mother is enough to unfurl the ribbons of hope still binding her heart. Her quest takes her to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and the heart of the Plain community. Aided by her unique eye color, a healthy dose of luck, and the private investigator she hires, Taryn finds her birth family easily enough, but finding the truth is another matter. In all her musings, she never imagined a scenario where her mother might be Amish. She never imagined that the fabric of her life might be a patchwork of faith and fear, stitched together with a dark family secret. Now she’s caught in the quicksand of a shocking discovery and the consequences of choices made, almost forty years ago. She’ll risk everything to uncover the truth and to claim the family—and the roots—she so desperately craves.

bio

Author Biography

Best-selling indie author Becki Willis loves crafting stories with believable characters in believable situations. Many of her stories stem from her own travels and from personal experiences. (No worries; she's never actually murdered anyone).

When she’s not plotting danger and adventure for her imaginary friends, Becki enjoys reading, antiquing (aka junking), unraveling a good mystery (real or imagined), dark chocolate, and a good cup of coffee. A professed history geek, Becki often weaves pieces of the past into her novels. Family is a central theme in her stories and in her life. She and her husband enjoy traveling, but believe coming home to their Texas ranch is the best part of any trip.

Becki is on the Board of Directors for Authors School of Business and has won numerous awards, but the real compliments come from her readers. Drop in for an e-visit anytime at beckiwillis.ccp@gmail.com, or www.beckiwillis.com.

website

Author Insight

A Mother's Love

Mother's Day is coming up. We set aside this day to honor and rejoice in moms everywhere, but motherhood is hardly a one-day-a-year job. Speaking from experience, being a mother is the most difficult, frightening, exhausting, self-doubting, humbling, satisfying, rewarding, joy-filled task I’ve ever attempted. Even though both my children are now grown and have become amazing adults and loving parents themselves, I still worry that I could be a better mother to them. I’m sure all mothers share the same doubts, the same fears, of failing their children. It begins when the babies are still in our wombs… are we eating the right foods/ taking the wrong medicine/ getting enough rest to ensure a strong, healthy baby? We do everything in our power to keep our babies safe, but what if the best thing for our child is to abandon it? It’s an unthinkable dilemma. To be honest, I’m not sure I would be strong enough—unselfish enough—to make such a decision. But Rebecca King knew that the only way to keep her newborn safe was to do the unimaginable—to leave her baby behind. Such a travesty is undoubtedly the most difficult and painful sacrifice a mother can make, but there are those rare and heart-breaking times when it’s also the ultimate act of love.

Book Excerpt

Plain Roots

Helen couldn’t bring herself to reveal everything she remembered from that night. She couldn’t be so cruel.

What did it matter now? The hopeful woman—Tara, was it? Or Terri? She was terrible with names— didn’t need to know that her mother had held her but once. Helen had placed the baby in her arms and watched as the girl hugged the bundle to her. She remembered Jane staring down at her newborn for a long moment, as if remembering every line of that sweet face. She had cried big, silent tears, and one splashed onto the baby’s cheek, startling her into a cry. The young mother panicked and held the baby away from her, but Helen remembered her calling her back at the last moment.

“Let me kiss her goodbye.”

After a soft kiss on the forehead, the girl turned away, before the baby even left for the nursery. She never asked for the normal statistics, like weight and inches. She pretended to sleep, but Helen remembered the way she cried quietly into sheets pulled high upon her face.

Taryn didn’t need to know it was the only time her mother ever saw her. She didn’t need to know that when her mother snuck out in the middle of the night, she left her baby behind.

Taryn already knew she was adopted.

She didn’t need to know she had been abandoned, as well.