Dream Daughter (Chamberlain)

The Dream Daughter
Diane Chamberlain, 2018
St. Martin's Press
384 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781250087300


Summary
A thrilling, mind-bending novel about one mother's journey to save her child.

When Carly Sears, a young woman widowed by the Vietnam war, receives the news that her unborn baby girl has a heart defect, she is devastated.

It is 1970, and she is told that nothing can be done to help her child. But her brother-in-law, a physicist with a mysterious past, tells her that perhaps there is a way to save her baby.

What he suggests is something that will shatter every preconceived notion that Carly has. Something that will require a kind of strength and courage she never knew existed. Something that will mean an unimaginable leap of faith on Carly's part.

And all for the love of her unborn child.

The Dream Daughter is a rich, genre-spanning, breathtaking novel about one mother's quest to save her child, unite her family, and believe in the unbelievable. Diane Chamberlain pushes the boundaries of faith and science to deliver a novel that you will never forget. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio
• Birth—1950
• Where—Plainfield, New Jersey, USA
• Education—B.A., M.A., San Diego State University
• Awards—RITA Award
• Currently—lives in North Carolina


Diane Chamberlain is the bestselling American author of some 30 novels, primarily surrounding family relationships, love, and forgiveness. Her works have been published in 20 languages. Her best-known books include The Silent Sister (2014), Necessary Lies (2013), and The Secret Life of CeeCee Wilkes (2006).

In her own words:
I was an insatiable reader as a child, and that fact, combined with a vivid imagination, inspired me to write. I penned a few truly terrible "novellas" at age twelve, then put fiction aside for many years as I pursued my education.

I grew up in Plainfield, New Jersey and spent my summers at the Jersey Shore, two settings that have found their way into my novels.

In high school, my favorite authors were the unlikely combination of Victoria Holt and Sinclair Lewis. I loved Holt's flair for romantic suspense and Lewis's character studies as well as his exploration of social values, and both those authors influenced the writer I am today.

I attended Glassboro State College in New Jersey as a special education major before moving to San Diego, where I received both my bachelor's and master's degrees in social work from San Diego State University. After graduating, I worked in a couple of youth counseling agencies and then focused on medical social work, which I adored. I worked at Sharp Hospital in San Diego and Children's Hospital in Washington, D.C. before opening a private psychotherapy practice in Alexandria, Virginia, specializing in adolescents. I reluctantly closed my practice in 1992 when I realized that I could no longer split my time between two careers and be effective at both of them.

It was while I was working in San Diego that I started writing. I'd had a story in my mind since I was a young adolescent about a group of people living together at the Jersey Shore. While waiting for a doctor's appointment one day, I pulled out a pen and pad began putting that story on paper. Once I started, I couldn't stop. I took a class in fiction writing, but for the most part, I "learned by doing." That story, Private Relations, took me four years to complete. I sold it in 1986, but it wasn't published until 1989 (three very long years!), when it earned me the RITA award for Best Single Title Contemporary Novel. Except for a brief stint writing for daytime TV (One Life to Live) and a few miscellaneous articles for newspapers and magazines, I've focused my efforts on book-length fiction and am currently working on my nineteenth novel.

My stories are often filled with mystery and suspense, and–I hope–they also tug at the emotions. Relationships – between men and women, parents and children, sisters and brothers – are always the primary focus of my books. I can't think of anything more fascinating than the way people struggle with life's trials and tribulations, both together and alone.

In the mid-nineties, I was diagnosed with rheumatoid arthritis, a challenging disease to live with. Although my RA is under good control with medication and I can usually type for many hours a day, I sometimes rely on voice recognition technology to get words on paper. I’m very grateful to the inventor of that software! I lived in Northern Virginia until the summer of 2005, when I moved to North Carolina, the state that inspired so many of my stories and where I live with my significant other, photographer John Pagliuca. I have three grown stepdaughters, three sons-in-law, three grandbabies, and two shelties named Keeper and Jet.

For me, the real joy of writing is having the opportunity to touch readers with my words. I hope that my stories move you in some way and give you hours of enjoyable reading. (With permission from the author's website. Retrieved 6/6/2014.)

Book Reviews
Rich and hearbreakingly written.
Women's World Magazine


A heartwarming and exciting page turner.
Augusta Chronicle


A touching story of love.
Parkersburg News-Sentinel


[E]xciting and heartfelt…. Chamberlain expertly blends the time-travel elements with the wonderful story of a mother’s love and the depths of sacrifice she makes for her child. This is a page-turning crowd-pleaser.
Publishers Weekly


Chamberlain stretches her sense of familial relationships and toe-curling suspense in new directions, weaving in elements of trust, history, and time as she explores the things we do for love. With a little tension and a lot of heart.
Booklist


[T]he reader… [is] asked to suspend a lot of disbelief… and try not to guess several obvious plot twists. Still, Carly is a likable heroine… caught in a heart-wrenching dilemma.… [W]ell-paced and… satisfyingly sweet despite its predictability.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
1. How does the prologue set the reader up for the rest of the novel? What did it leave you wondering about?

2. How does the dual perspective—Hunter’s narration in 1970 and Carly’s narration throughout her experiences—affect your reading experience? What are the primary differences between their voices? What do you like about having both sides of the story?

3. Throughout the novel, Carly and Hunter share a very special bond of trust and understanding. Where do you think that bond comes from? Is it simply because they are family? Do you have a similar bond with your family, either the one you were born with or the one you chose for yourself?

4. In The Dream Daughter, Carly has to take the ultimate leap of faith, both literally and metaphorically. Have you ever had to take a similar leap? What about it scared you? Was it ultimately worth it?

5. When Carly first travels to 2001, she is baffled by all of the technology and the changing social norms. Which things that Carly didn’t understand do you find most interesting? Were any of them funny? What do you think you would find if you traveled thirty years into the future?

6. Throughout the novel, the presence of water plays an important role in Carly’s life. She lives close to the ocean in North Carolina, she met her husband at the beach, and she feels much more comfortable stepping off over water whenever she can. What do you think water means to Carly? How does she find comfort in it, even in New York City?

7. On page 178, Patti says to Hunter, "It would be like you killed her. Maybe you have." Why do you think Patti feels this way about her husband, whom she loves very much? How is Patti processing her grief and fear differently from Hunter? How do you think you would react in a similar situation?
(Questions issued by the publishers.)

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