The Dream Daughter book review follows below. I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up this book so I was thrilled when I was drawn into a story about a mother’s love and the lengths she would go to save her daughter’s life.
When I was 35 weeks along with my twins I developed a sudden case of pre-eclampsia. At 34 weeks my blood pressure was completely normal, on the low end of normal in fact. By the following week it had sky rocketed to 154/94. I was immediately sent to Labor & Delivery to be monitored for a few hours.
Those few hours turned in to two weeks on complete hospital bed rest. I was allowed to get out of bed to use the bathroom only. It meant leaving my husband and older three kids at home and only seeing them for an hour or two each day in my cramped little room. It meant wearing TENS units to keep the blood moving in my legs to prevent blood clots. It meant constant blood pressure checks, protein checks, and ultrasounds to determine when and if the babies needed to be delivered immediately.
Thankfully, after two weeks we were able to induce and I was able to deliver both boys. They came out healthy and alert. We’ve never had any serious health issues with them. They came home after two days with me in the hospital. So despite the boredom and loneliness that bed rest brought, not to mention the fear of emergency surgery and NICU stays looming over our heads, I would do it all again in a second because it meant they were safe.
But what if it wasn’t that simple?
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The Dream Daughter Book Review
I didn’t know what to expect when I picked up The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain. I received the book without reading a description and went in completely blind to the story, other than it being about a mother and daughter. I was honestly expecting a fairly sappy story!
Full disclosure: The prologue didn’t do enough to intrigue me so I put it down and walked away for nearly two weeks. I kept looking at the book, knowing I should read it, only to set it aside again for another day. It took me wanting to avoid a bit of housework for me to finally dive in.
Once I got into chapter three I was hooked. I had to know how this story played out. Within a matter of days I had finished the book and couldn’t stop explaining the whole story to Micah.
Let’s back up and I’ll give you the plot that doesn’t actually give much of the story away.
Carly has found out the daughter she is carrying has a life threatening heart condition and likely won’t live past birth. Her brother-in-law offers a crazy solution that could help Carly’s daughter live, but it seems to out there to be true. Carly needs to decide what she is willing to do to save her daughter’s life.
As a parent, I completely understood and empathized with Carly’s situation. When it comes to our kids, we want to explore every single option possible to keep them healthy and safe. I had to keep turning the pages to know what choices she would make and how it would all end.
I’m so glad I took the time to finish this book as it ended up being very enjoyable. There was some language that didn’t need to be included, but otherwise it was a pretty clean read. Most of the characters are well developed and even minor characters have personalities and motivations that are realistic and that make sense in the story.
Interested in reading a sample chapter of the book? Amazon has you covered!
The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain is available on Kindle and in print copies.