"Hard hitting look at a truth"
Reviewed by Sandra Wurman
Posted April 13, 2025
Women's Fiction Friendship
LOOKING FOR JANE – By Heather Marshall
Have you ever read a book where you are consistently challenged to think about your opinion? LOOKING FOR JANE is definitely going to give you some time to pause. It’s about an awful time for women and girls who find themselves at the mercy of groups of men. It sounds a lot like times that haven’t really evolved. My thought is that everyone has to answer to their own conscience.
In LOOKING FOR JANE we find Heather Marshall giving us a divided focus. The title easily refers to an answer to the challenge of searching for a less dangerous choice for abortions. But there is another search simultaneously happening. And that is one for someone’s birth mother.
Imagine looking through your mother’s personal items and making a discovery that changes everything you have believed. Nancy makes such a discovery and is now at a crossroads on whether to pursue the clues she has uncovered. In the early days adoption was closely guarded. It’s not until rather recently that people are requesting that the records previously sealed be opened. Perhaps just out of curiosity. Or for health and welfare questions. Or just because something just hasn’t felt right.
At the same time, Heather Marshall has us following Nancy’s path. We begin to uncover a set of circumstances that mirror the issue of not just adoption but of the alternative choice of abortion.
LOOKING FOR JANE is a candid look at a civilization that seems heavily weighted against female rights. An interesting aside is the look at the religious institutions’ involvement in both these issues. There is seemingly no right or wrong. But there is definitely safety and danger.
The first part of LOOKING FOR JANE focuses on young women being sent away to have their babies. Supposedly to save their reputations. The facts on how they came to be in this situation are definitely muddy. We watch two young women whose experience at the church-run home make some harsh discoveries. When their time at the home is over we are now going to somehow follow their future choices. This is where all the a-ha moments come and the LOOKING FOR JANE title develops two distinctly different meanings.
If you’ve never read Heather Marshall, welcome to amazing. Her research is second to none and once you’ve read something by her, she will be instantly added to your must-read list of authors. She doesn’t pull any punches. Her imagery is visceral. LOOKING FOR JANE is the book to read this year. Be prepared to go through a gamut of feelings.
SUMMARY
This “clever and satisfying” (Associated Press) #1 international bestseller for fans of Kristin Hannah and Jennifer Chiaverini follows three women who are bound together by a long-lost letter, a mother’s love, and a secret network of women fighting for the right to choose—inspired by true stories.
2017: When Angela Creighton discovers a mysterious letter containing a life-shattering confession, she is determined to find the intended recipient. Her search takes her back to the 1970s when a group of daring women operated an illegal underground abortion network in Toronto known only by its whispered code name: Jane.
1971: As a teenager, Dr. Evelyn Taylor was sent to a home for “fallen” women where she was forced to give up her baby for adoption—a trauma she has never recovered from. Despite the constant threat of arrest, she joins the Jane Network as an abortion provider, determined to give other women the choice she never had.
1980: After discovering a shocking secret about her family, twenty-year-old Nancy Mitchell begins to question everything she has ever known. When she unexpectedly becomes pregnant, she feels like she has no one to turn to for help. Grappling with her decision, she locates “Jane” and finds a place of her own alongside Dr. Taylor within the network’s ranks, but she can never escape the lies that haunt her.
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