Daughter of Mine

I love that I finally had time to read a book that was not for a review...and that it was so good, that I still wanted to share it with you!

Over the weekend I read the debut book by Laura Fabiani, called Daughter of Mine.  
From Laura's Website:
Tiziana Manoretti is an only child in her late twenties blessed with loving parents, a promising career, and a best friend who fiercely protects her. When her mother falls seriously ill and the relationship between her parents becomes suddenly strained, a carefully hidden family secret is revealed and Tiziana’s seemingly idealistic world is turned upside down.

After discovering she was born in a Naples orphanage and subsequently given up for adoption, Tiziana sets out for the small town of Gaeta in an attempt to find her birth parents. Meanwhile, her best friend Christopher is sending her mixed messages, causing her to wonder if there is more to their relationship than just companionship. As she becomes intertwined with a handful of interesting characters who help her uncover her past, Tiziana needs to decide whether her feelings for Christopher are deeper than she realizes. She discovers herself and others all while her family’s resilience and love for one another is tested when confronted with a shocking truth.
The answers lie in a box found in a closet in Italy, and Tiziana must determine if she wants to embrace the heartache and the pain from her past in order to learn forgiveness and find peace in the future.


Daughter of Mine was an emotionally intense book for me.   This surprised me because I can't relate to the main character, Tiziana, on the level of being Canadian, Italian, or even adopted.  However, Laura Fabiani made me thoroughly enjoy Tiziana and I was able to relate to her on many levels.


Some readers may want to know something ahead of time.  The funny thing is that this is also something I admire...Laura, the author, was bold in including her faith and included Bible verses in the book, and it happened naturally and effectively.  In one chapter of Daughter of Mine, Tiziana is witnessed to by a kind woman and her granddaughter.  They are Jehovah's Witnesses, and the verses quoted are from the New World Translation (the version of the Bible used only by Jehovah's Witnesses).   There was also a bit of an advertisement for their literature The Watchtower and Awake! Though this incident took me by surprise, it did not diminish the story.


You can get to know Laura a bit more at her blog Library of Clean Reads.   She even has ratings for the books she reviews so you can know if there is language, violence, or sex.  I would love for  book publishers to rate books...but in the meantime...Library of Clean Reads is a good resource, and a blog I really enjoy!