Given Up

Well-written and insightful, Given Up, highlights the joy and heartbreak surrounding the author’s adoption six weeks after she was born and the search for her birth parents long after her adoptive parents raised her in a loving home. It also sheds light on the chance encounters that shaped her life before she was born and decades later.

Life would have looked different for Mary Sharon Bailey if her dad and mom had married when her mom discovered she was pregnant. But her biological grandmother—her father’s mother—didn’t like the woman who’d stolen her son’s heart, which then set off a chain of events affecting their unborn child. Was this the hand of God? Her story certainly speaks to it.

While Bailey considers the strange coincidences that mark her connections with her birth family, whom she locates, fortunately, her readers will reflect on their own destinies.

What if . . . then . . .

Thought provoking and engrossing, Given Up has plenty of stories packed in a short, easy read. Kudos to the author!