Surrender: A memoir of nature, nurture, and love

Written by Marylee MacDonald

Narrated by Kristi Koons

Her young life changed in an instant. Now she shares her story with the child she gave away.

Adopted at birth, Marylee's parents told her she was a "chosen child." She tried her hardest to make them proud, but her parents' divorce sent her into the comforting arms of a handsome Catholic boy.

Convinced that he was her Romeo and she a modern-day Juliet, she surrendered to passion. Unfortunately, it was 1961. Pregnant girls were sent away, and their babies given up for adoption.

Nature vs. nurture:Which plays a greater role in who we become? The family we were raised in, or the parents we never knew?

In telling her adult son the story of his birth, can the narrator find compassion for her own wounded inner child?

If you like truthful accounts laced with the passion of youth and the wisdom of age, read Marylee MacDonald's funny and poignant memoir about how we grow up, grow old, and learn to accept ourselves.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Grand Canyon Press
• Release date: Nov 16, 2020
• ISBN: 9781667904245

Marylee MacDonald

Marylee MacDonald is the author of Bonds of Love & Blood, Montpelier Tomorrow, and The Rug Bazaar. She has taught at the Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University, and been Writer-in-Residence for the City of Mesa Public Library. Her fiction has won the Barry Hannah Prize, the ALR Fiction Award, the Ron Rash Award, the Jeanne Leiby Memorial Chapbook Award, the Matt Clark Prize, a Gold Medal for Drama from the Readers’ Favorites International Book Awards, and an Illinois Arts Council Fellowship for Fiction. Her work has appeared in the American Literary Review, Bellevue Literary Review, Blue Moon Literary & Art Review, Broad River Review, The Chattahoochee Review, Folio, Four Quarters, NEW SUN RISING: Stories for Japan, North Atlantic Review, Raven Chronicles, Reunion, River Oak Review, ROLL, Ruminate, StoryQuarterly, Superstition Review, The Briar Cliff Review, Yalobusha Review, and others. She lives in Tempe, AZ. If you enjoy her books, please post a review on Amazon.com, Goodreads, and your favorite social media sites. Thank you!