Central Avenue Publishing

In The Shadow of 10,000 Hills by Jennifer Haupt
Published by Central Avenue Publishing on April 1st 2018
Pages: 384
Format: ebook
Genres: Literary Fiction
See it @ Goodreads

Synopsis

Follow the intertwining stories of three women from diverse backgrounds, all searching for family and personal peace in post-genocide Rwanda. At the heart of this inspiring novel that bestselling author Wally Lamb calls "an evocative page-turner" and Caroline Leavitt calls "blazingly original" is th...

Follow the intertwining stories of three women from diverse backgrounds, all searching for family and personal peace in post-genocide Rwanda. At the heart of this inspiring novel that bestselling author Wally Lamb calls "an evocative page-turner" and Caroline Leavitt calls "blazingly original" is the discovery of grace when there can be no forgiveness.

In 1968, Lillian Carlson left Atlanta, disillusioned and heartbroken, after the assassination of Martin Luther King. She found meaning in the hearts of orphaned African children and cobbled together her own small orphanage in the Rift Valley alongside the lush forests of Rwanda.

Three decades later, in New York, Rachel Shepherd, lost and heartbroken herself, embarks on a journey to find the father who abandoned her as a young child, determined to solve the enigma of Henry Shepherd, a now-famous photographer.

When an online search turns up a clue to his whereabouts, Rachel travels to Rwanda to connect with an unsuspecting and uncooperative Lillian. While Rachel tries to unravel the mystery of her father's disappearance, she finds unexpected allies in an ex-pat doctor running from his past and a young Tutsi woman who lived through a profound experience alongside her father.

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Suffering from the loss of an unborn child, Rachel Shepard decides that she needs to find her photographer father. Henry Shepard left his eight-year-old daughter and his wife to follow Lillian, a black woman he fell in love with in an era that was a taboo. Rachel’s relationship with her husband strained by the loss of a child sets out for a six-week stay in Rwanda to look for her father.
Set against the backdrop of the one the most heinous genocides the world has ever seen, Rachel lands in Rwanda hoping to reconnect with her father.
What she finds is a country trying to set itself right after years of bloodshed.
Sadly, Rachel’s search for her father against the Rwanda genocide seemed rather shallow, while the stories of Lillian and Nadine tugged at the heartstrings, Rachel did not elicit any empathy from me.