When we first meet Mary Kline in
God Bless the Child
, Book One of
The Women of Paradise County
series, she is sewing, her main obsession besides eating. It is hard to blame Mary for who she has become. She's been perpetually hungry since childhood, and as she becomes a woman, she craves something far more delicious-a child of her own.
When Pearl Davis turns up pregnant after a church-basement encounter with James Pullman, the pastor's son, Mary and her parents swoop in and "adopt" Pearl and her baby, Elizabeth. It's a disastrous move.
As a teen, Elizabeth rebuffs Mary's smothering affection and winds up pregnant. Mary insists on an abortion, which they both keep secret. When she later becomes a young mother, Elizabeth's depression leads to severe OCD. When her irrationally patient husband, David, learns about the abortion and the harrowing nights Elizabeth witnessed as a child when her birth mother was abused, more secrets are revealed that explain Mary Kline's insatiable appetite and her desire to be loved.
By the time Mary and Elizabeth confront the twisted truths that bind them, their entire family is sucked into grappling with layers of trauma spanning three generations.
Everyone in
must reckon with their past as they seek forgiveness and redemption.