In Search of Eden -Linda Nichols-

1. In Search of Eden-Linda Nichols- Taylor Burns 6/2/08 4th hour English B

2. L i n d aNichols Linda Nichols, a graduate of the University of Washington, is a novelist with a unique gift for touching readers’ hearts with her stories. Her novel At the Scent of Water was selected as a Book of the Year finalist by ForeWord magazine. Linda and her family make their home in Tacoma, Washington. - The author used third person narrative.

3. I N S E A R C H In Search of Eden, is a story of one woman’s journey through life, looking for something she lost. Every day she remembers the day that changed her life forever, the day her heart was torn in pieces. Ever since that event, it’s been hard for her to settle down. Instead, she finds herself moving from place to place, starting one adventure after another, trying to forget. But she never can. After a while, there comes a day when she determines once again to find what she has been missing for nearly 12 years , but this time she refuses to give up. That day is where her real story begins. O F E D E N

4. Miranda DeSpain “Lord Jesus,” she prayed aloud, “your heart is loving and forgiving. You said just as a mother would never forget her child, so you would never forget us, for you have engraved us on the palms of your hands. I pray now for these two, that somehow, someday, your love would bring them back together and that in the meantime, you would guard and keep them. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” (14) Miranda DeSpain is the main character of In Search of Eden. When she was 15 years old, she gave birth to a baby that her mother forced her to give up for adoption. When the baby was born, they whisked it away so quickly, even the nurses had barely caught a glimpse of it. Miranda’s mother would not allow her to see the baby, she wouldn’t even let them tell Miranda the vital statistics. Not the birth weight, length, not even if it was a boy or girl. However, one brave nurse, Wanda, snuck into the nursery. She brought Miranda the baby and put it in the young mother’s arms. Wanda put a hand on the mother’s head and another on the baby’s and prayed. As Wanda gently pried the child out of Miranda’s hands, she began to cry again. She wondered if she would ever see the face of that child again.

5. Several years later, as 26 year old Miranda walked down the street after a rough day at work, a building caught her eye. She stood in front of the imposing building, a huge brick and marble church. She walked through the doors, made her way into the sanctuary, and sat down on the back pew. A pastor walked toward her and asked if there was anything she wanted to talk about. He could sense that she was hesitating to tell him her story. He started preaching, “…All you have to do is give yourself to Him. If anything needs fixing, He’ll do it”. (32) After talking for a while, she left to go back home. His words had gone somewhere deep inside her. They urged her to start changing where she was going in life.

6. David and Joseph Although brothers David and Joseph Williams are not the main characters in In Search of Eden, they do play a big part in the making of the story. Without them, the story wouldn’t quite come together. Joseph and David were very close when they were kids. Joseph had a long relationship with Sarah, who was also one of David’s friends. Joseph went away for a few months for work in another state. He returned to find that his brother had stolen his girlfriend and gotten her pregnant. Since then, Joseph and David hadn’t had a very good relationship and had not talked in nearly 11 years after David moved his new family out of Abingdon. On a cold, snowy winter night, David was driving home from a church in Maplewood where he had delivered a seminar. He saw headlights coming towards him, on his side of the road. But by the time he saw them it was too late. As the drunk driver hit David head on, the car behind him also hit the driver’s side of his car. David was transported to the best trauma center in the area, where he was in a coma in critical condition. The doctors weren’t sure if he was going to survive. Joseph made his way to the Hasty Taste, a diner in a small town called Abingdon, Virginia where he lived, for breakfast like he did everyday. As he was eating, his phone rang. It was Sarah with news of an accident, David’s accident. She told him about it and asked him to take care of their daughter Eden while she was in the hospital with David.

7. The story really got started when Miranda learned of her mother’s death. Miranda was close to her mother, but when she died Miranda couldn’t stand to be in the same town without her. She packed up and made plans to leave. The night before she was going to leave, she found something in a drawer of her mother’s old desk. It was an envelope addressed to her mother, dated December 14, 1996, exactly a year after her own baby had been born. She opened the envelope to find a baby picture inside, with the words “12 months old” written on the back. Instantly she knew the baby was her own. She read the postmark more carefully. It was smudged, but she could make out two words- Abingdon, Virginia. For the first time in her life, she knew where she was headed.

8. After making her way into Abingdon, Miranda finds a place to stay and gets a job at the Hasty Taste. She meets Joseph, and without really knowing, they find out the rest of Miranda’s story, who her baby is. It may even be someone that has been around both of them for quite a while. To share anything else that happened throughout the book would be to completely give the book away, so I suggest that if you want to know the ending…pick up the book and start reading.

9. The Letters- “My friend says the luckiest people are the ones who don’t walk away. Those words have settled in, and I carry them around with me because, for most of my life, I was what you would call unreliable. It’s not that I wanted to be that way. It’s just who I became. I have walked away form almost everything in my life at least once. When things become marred, I always thought they were ruined. I was the kind of person my friend would call unlucky because I floated away from things like dandelion fluff drifts off in the breeze…” This is part of a letter that Miranda wrote to her child and put in a scrapbook of her life that would be a gift to him or her. This was meaningful because she is taking the time not only to create a heartfelt gift to someone she has seen only once in her life, but she is able to talk about her mistakes. She is able to notice her faults, and try to change them to become a better person.

10. -Lesson- By reading this book, I have learned many things. One lesson I learned from In Search of Eden was that no matter how unbelievable or impossible something may seem, you should never give up on the thing you want the most. When something may seem hard for you to accomplish, you should keep pushing through, no matter what life throws at you. Especially if it is your biggest dream. Even if times are rough, and you face difficult tasks, don’t give up. Getting through them will make you a stronger person in the end. Anything is possible if you believe in yourself and what you can accomplish.