Sins of the Mother
Victoria Christopher Murray
Touchstone, Jun 2010, $15.00
ISBN: 9781416589181

In a former life, Jasmine Larson Bush was a stripper, a liar, an adulterous, and a thief. She told her husband Hosea that her daughter Jacqueline was his, but she was actually Brian Lewis' biological offspring. He assumed she was is child. Jasmine is married to a prominent pastor who preaches at the famous City of Lights Church and has a TV show. She believes her life is perfect.

Her idyllic life crumbles at the mall when she leaves her daughter with Mae Frances, who she thinks of as her mother, and goes to the bathroom to change her son's diaper. When she returns her daughter is nowhere to be seen. Mae Frances took her eye off the child for a moment that proved long enough for the girl to vanish. The police treat the disappearance as a kidnapping. As days pass with no sign of progress, Brian offers to help because he feels a connection to the daughter although he gave up his parental rights. As Jasmine tries to entice Brian into starting a new relationship with her, he wants to get back with his ex wife. Emotionally shattered, Jasmine collapses but a forgiving Hosea takes care of his wife while praying to the Lord to bring home their daughter to them safely.

This is the most emotionally draining experience of Jasmine's soap operish life (see Lady Jasmine, Temptation, A Sin and a Shame, and Too Little, Too Late) and she copes with it, understandably, extremely poorly as she is particularly vulnerable. Readers empathize with her while admire Hosea and to a lesser degree Brian. Victoria Christopher Murray has written her most compelling tale to date as Jasmine and the audience will go from despondent emotional draining to spiritual uplifting in an intensely charged thriller.

Harriet Klausner