Harvesting the Heart

Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who left when she was five. Now, having left her father behind in Chicago for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, she finds herself with a child of her own. But her mother's absence, and shameful memories of her past, make her doubt both her maternal ability and her sense of self-worth.Out of Paige's struggle to find wholeness by searching for her mother and facing her own insecurities, Jodi Picoult crafts an absorbing novel peopled with richly drawn characters. Any mother - or child - cannot help but relate to the issues and emotions explored within this powerful and moving book.'Jodi Picoult explores the fragile ground of ambivalent motherhood in her lush second novel.' - New York Times Book Review'Reminiscent of Sue Miller's The Good Mother , Harvesting the Heart has a voice all its own.' - Chicago TribuneJodi Picoult's bestselling and widely acclaimed novels include Second Glance , Perfect Match , Nineteen Minutes , Keeping Faith and The Pact. She lives in New Hampshire with her husband and three children.

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Picoult ( Songs of the Humpback Whales ) brings her considerable talents to this contemporary story of a young woman in search of her identity. Abandoned by her mother when she was five years old, Paige O'Toole has been left with painful doubts about her self-worth. She leaves her Chicago home for Cambridge, Mass., at 18 to fulfill herself as an artist, but must work in a diner because she can't afford art school. When she marries Harvard medical student Nicholas Prescott, his parents disown him, disapproving of their Irish Catholic daughter-in-law. Again Paige is forced to sideline her creative needs and work as a waitress in order to support Nicholas until he is able to establish his career as a cardiac surgeon. Paige is soon overwhelmed by the demands of Nicholas's socially sophisticated world, and after the birth of their son, Max, she becomes emotionally