The Mother's Day Garden

With her daughter attending college, Hannah O'Connell, recovering from a hysterectomy, feels less a woman. She escapes to a happier time over a decade ago when her loving spouse Sam and their child gave her a special Mother's Day gift of a garden containing three lilac bushes. The number represented the members of their family. Hannah wanted more children, but alas no more ever came. Her problem with the past is that she also recalls her ugliest incident from her teen days that she has hid from her spouse. Sam fears that he lost Hannah as she rejects him more each day, but rather than reach out to her, Sam begins to hide his hurt as he learned to do in an abusive childhood. Hannah finds an abandoned baby and believes that the infant has saved her life. Sam supports her quest to become the baby's foster parent. As the O'Connells struggle to save their teetering relationship, Hannah's high school sweetheart Tony Blake has returned. He wants Hannah back and will use the baby as a pawn to obtain his obsession. MOTHER'S DAY GARDEN is an emotional look at a person in trouble due to feelings of inadequacies that impact her relationships with her loved ones. The engrossing story line draws the audience into the problems confronting Hannah and Sam though Tony seems more of an unnecessary intruder. Readers who relish melodramatic relationship dramas will want to read Kimberly Cates powerfully angst-laden tale of a family in crisis.Harriet Klausner