In Every Way: A Novel

By Nic Brown

Chapel Hill college student Maria finds herself in a predicamentunexpectedly pregnant at nineteen. Still reeling from the fresh discovery of her mother’s diagnosis with cancer, Maria’s decision to give her daughter up for adoption is one that seems to be in everyone’s best interest, especially when it comes to light that the child’s father hasn’t exactly been faithful to her following the birth of her daughter. So when her mother proposes an extended trip to sleepy coastal town Beaufortthe same town that the adoptive couple Maria chose for her daughter just happens to live inMaria jumps at the chance to escape.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Maria finds herself listless and bored soon after her arrival in Beaufort, and a summer job seems like a cure. She has kept close watch on the couple she chose to adopt her daughterthey live mere blocks awayand, as opportunity demands, she accepts a position as their nanny. Maria ingratiates herself into the familyhesitantly, at first, and then with all the confused and chaotic fervor of a mother separated from her child.

In Every Way is a heartfelt novel that brings to light the unknowing destruction that heartache can manifest, and brims with the redemptive power of new

• Language: English
• Publisher: Counterpoint
• Release date: Feb 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781619025059

Reviews for In Every Way

[jfe16 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

Nineteen-year-old Maria finds herself enmeshed in difficult circumstances: her mother has been diagnosed with stage four breast cancer and while Maria is trying to deal with that she discovers that she is unexpectedly pregnant. She makes the decision to give up her child [a girl she names Bonacieux] for adoption, choosing a couple she recognizes from Beaufort, the town where she and her mother have spent their summers. Later, when she and her mother just happen to be in Beaufort for an extended stay, Maria finagles her way into their lives, becomes their babysitter and then begins an affair with the adoptive father.Maria’s thoughtless, self-serving actions, largely focused on her desire to be with the daughter she gave up for adoption, create a disastrous situation and unleash destruction on the family that she so carefully chose for her baby. By the time she comes to the realization that her decisions and choices need to be about what is best for the child, readers are apt to be completely unsympathetic to her.