Leaving Haven by Kathleen McCleary

Leaving Haven by Kathleen McCleary is the type of book that pulls at the reader’s heart while reading it. The type that makes the reader think that things like friendship, fidelity, marriage, and children are not just black and white, and sometimes things happen that there is no turning back from.

Book Description

“Georgia Bing and Alice Kinnaird have always been there for each other. Eager to help her best friend have another baby after several miscarriages, Alice donates one of her eggs. When Georgia learns she's going to have the baby boy she's always wanted, she's thrilled—until a devastating discovery destroys her dreams.

While Alice is happy to help her friend get pregnant, she also feels a twinge of disappointment that her own life is missing something . . . something she desperately craves. On the surface, Alice has everything—a busy social life, a great job, a faithful husband, an amazing teenage daughter. But her well-ordered world is knocked off its axis when she's tempted by a forbidden passion that threatens the bonds of friendship, marriage, and motherhood that sustain her.

As the safety of their past is shattered, Georgia and Alice must embark on journeys of self-discovery—odysseys filled with surprising challenges that will test them and force them to confront the truth about their lives . . . and the choices they've made.” – Leaving Haven

My Thoughts

Warning: Leaving Haven is a book that does not follow a very straightforward progression. It varies on the timeline of being in the present and alternating it with the past. Sometimes this works out very well, but in cases like this book, it could have been done a bit better. It doesn’t make it an unworthy book to read by any means, but it is something you have to put up with to get through to the very good story.

The main characters of Alice and Georgia were developed very well, and you feel like you know them and the majority of their family struggles throughout the book. I can’t get into it much more than that without giving away the spoilers on the plot of the story. I would have liked to have read more about their husbands though, because that is an essential part of why things ended up the way they did in this story.

I like authors that push the boundaries on the stories they tell. Kathleen McCleary does that with this book dealing with friendship and marital infidelity. She is definitely a very gifted writer that I want to read more of in the future!

* Thank you to the publisher of Leaving Haven, William Morrow, for providing me with a copy of this book for review. All opinions expressed are my own.