The youngest of three daughters, Angela DeSaria Malone was
always “the princess” of the family, a girl who thought she
knew how her life would unfold. High School. College.
Marriage. Motherhood. That was how it had gone for her
sisters, her cousins, her friends. But it didn’t work out
that way for Angie. She and her husband tried desperately
to have a child; year after year, their perfectly decorated
nursery remained empty. Finally, their marriage collapsed
under the weight of lost dreams.
After the divorce, Angie moved back to her hometown and
rejoined her loud, loving, slightly crazy family. In West
End, a place where life rises and falls in time with the
tides, she will find the man who once again will open her
heart to love . . . and meet the girl who will change
Angie’s life.
Lauren Ribido lives in a rundown apartment in a bad part of
town with a mother who cares more about her next drink than
about her daughter. At seventeen, Lauren knows that her
aspirations in life may never come to pass.
From the moment they meet, Angie sees something special in
Lauren. They form a quick connection, this woman who is
desperate for a daughter and the girl who has never known a
mother’s love. When Lauren is abandoned by her mother,
Angie doesn’t hesitate to offer the girl a place to stay.
But nothing could have prepared Angie for the far-reaching
repercussions of this act of kindness. In a dramatic turn
of events, she and Lauren will be tested in a way that
mothers and daughters seldom are. Together they will embark
on an intensely moving, deeply emotional journey to the
very heart of what it means to be a family.