Then and Now

Abby Levy has all the hallmarks of a comfortable suburban life – a loving marriage, two healthy children, and a fulfilling job as a Spanish translator. Then her nine-year-old son David comes home from school ill with symptoms of a serious illness. After doctor appointments and lab tests, David is diagnosed with this very serious illness. Abby and her husband Josh are mystified. How can their healthy, active son David have developed this often-hereditary illness? No one in either of their families has ever had this. Or have family secrets hidden this possibility from her?      

Abby is forced to admit a never-discussed truth in her family: Her father's family is their great unknown.  As they make sure their son receives the best treatment, she struggles to keep herself and her family on an even keel. Still, she can't stop searching for answers on various genealogical websites. She needs to understand the family that she has never met whose names she has never heard. These people may have impacted her family, plunging them into a crisis.

          In this dual time-line novel, two families, one past and one modern, face hurdles that have the potential to tear them apart. What happened to her grandfather's family? Abby grapples with her son's illness and its fallout. At the same time, she cannot stop the pursuit of her elusive family. What caused the break in her father's family and why has her father always refused to talk about it? Will her family hold together or break apart, too?

          As the author confronted her own family's mystery, it inspired her to turn it into the story of two families— one present and one historic - who faced crises that had the potential to tear them apart. But in the past and the present, will learning the answers to the mystery raise more questions than solutions?