The You I Never Knew
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4.2 • 33 Ratings
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- $9.99
Publisher Description
A successful single mom returns home to Montana for a chance to save her relationships with her estranged father, distant teenage son, and a long lost love in this heartfelt novel from #1 New York Times bestselling author Susan Wiggs.
Michelle Turner is seventeen when her mother dies and her Hollywood legend father invites her to spend a year with him at his Montana ranch. Michelle quickly falls in love with the landscape, the horses, and the ranch's hired hand, Sam McPhee. But when her father learns of the affair, he has Sam fired and his family destroyed. Michelle, pregnant and alone, flees to Seattle.
Years later, an unexpected call causes Michelle to drop everything to return home to Montana and the life she ran from before, this time with her troubled teenage son in tow. Her father is dying and the only chance to save him is for Michelle to donate a kidney.
For her sick father, she must bridge the gulf that distance and time widened. For her son, she must find the miracle that will pull him away from the abyss of self-destruction that threatens his future. And for Sam, the man who left her years ago, she must face all the secrets of the past and find a way to love again.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Veteran author Wiggs's first romance for Warner reveals the pain that comes with love. When teenager Michelle Turner becomes pregnant, she finds herself abandoned by both her angry father and her ranch-hand lover, Sam McPhee, who vanishes before she can give him the news. When her father is at risk of dying from kidney failure 17 years later, Michelle, a successful single mom with a beloved but difficult son in tow, returns to tiny Crystal City, Mont., to donate the kidney that can save her father's life. Michelle is prepared to deal with the trauma of surgery, an estranged father and a rebellious child, but she is completely unprepared when she encounters Sam McPhee. Now a prosperous rancher and doctor, Sam quickly recognizes Cody as his, and with that revelation, a damaged family begins to heal itself. Overabundant flashbacks give the novel's first half a frustrating stop-and-start rhythm, and the character of Michelle never quite comes into focus. In contrast, Cody is beautifully and believably wrought as a teenager who hides a good heart under a bad attitude. Fragmented families are a romance staple, and Wiggs's sensitive portrayal of parents and lovers trying to bond despite a less-than-perfect past exemplifies the richness and realism this theme can lend a love story.
