Book Title: The Life You Long For

Author: Maribeth Fischer

Genres:  Adult Fiction, Suspense

Pub Date: March 6, 2007

3 STARS

When every mother’s worst nightmare becomes Grace’s reality, she must examine her entire life — from the wrong choices to the right mistakes. Grace’s son Jack is a miracle. At three years old, he’s fighting a mysterious, deadly disease that his doctors predicted would kill him as a baby. Even though it was determined to be mitochondrial disease, the little-known illness remains a mystery to medicine. Grace has sat by his bedside every minute he has been in the hospital, questioned every diagnosis, every medicine — even poring over medical journals and books at home late into the night. To the world, Grace’s fierce dedication is the sole reason for her son’s survival. But someone suspects that perhaps Jack’s disease is not what it seems.

When an allegation of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy is leveled against Grace, she begins to live in constant suspicion of everyone — from the doctors and nurses surrounding her son in the hospital to her own husband. Who could possibly think that she has been purposely making her son ill to gain attention for herself?

Although her husband believes their life is exactly as it seems to the outside world, Grace knows differently. She is harboring a secret — the adulterous affair she’s having with her first love. But perhaps her biggest betrayal of all is her shameful uncertainty about whether she’s chosen the right path, the right husband, the right life.

In this compelling and heartbreaking novel, critically acclaimed author Maribeth Fischer addresses how the choices we made yesterday can affect everything that lies before us. 

This is once again another book review installment from the 48-hour Reading Challenge that I participated in back in 2007.

This is a story where I could identify with the heroine on one level as a mother, but yet on another I wanted to throttle her. Grace is the mother of three with her youngest, Jack who is three, having a rare condition known as mitochondrial disease. He is terminal and everyone in the family is dealing with the inevitable in their own way.

The story starts out on Christmas Eve with Grace spending part of the day with her lover…a childhood sweetheart who has been carrying a torch for her for 20 years since she dumped him. Not long after…

Grace learns that there has been an accusation of Munchaussen’s Syndrome by Proxy against her. So not only is she dealing with Jack’s illness, but also the threat of him being taken away from her. But she relaxes as the Children’s Protection Agency does not have enough to prosecute until there is a second complaint.

This book definitely pulls on your heart strings.

September 11th does have a major role in the plot, but I won’t say what…it just makes all of the characters take stock. I will say that the family does have two traditions that I would like to adopt in our own…on New Year’s Eve, as a family they put together a jigsaw puzzle. Then the other is they have a jar with questions that they pull out, one a day, and ask each other…for instance, if you were a color what would you be?