What Does Every Parent Fear?

Title: THE DEEP END OF THE OCEAN
Author: Jacquelyn Mitchard
Category: Contemporary/Chick lit
Pub. Date: 06/01/1996
Publisher: Viking Adult
Format: Hardback
Pages: 434
ISBN#: 0670865796
Series: Cappadora Family #1

Synopsis:  
Used Hardcover published by Viking, N.Y., 1996, 434 pages in Very Good Condition. Clean Copy with no marks, rips, tears, creases, loose or bent pages. Price on the Dust Jacket's inside flap has not been clipped. Beth Cappadora experiences every parents nightmare, she lets her guard down for a moment and her child vanishes. Despite a massive nation-wide search, her three-year old son Ben is never found. His disappearance destroys her family driving a shattering wedge between her husband and herself, and transforming her other son, Vincent into a troubled delinquent driven by the guilt that he was supposed to be watching over his younger brother at the time. After nine long years of waiting and hoping, the family decides to leave the area and start a family restaurant in Chicago and maybe a chance at a new life and a reason to continue living. And then it happens: Ben reappears after nine long years. A story about a family redeemed and reborn, one that will stun you with its pain, and surprise you with its hope. It is a story about a family catapulted into a hurricane and the startling way in which they emerged, a touching, and wonderful parable of redemption through suffering and love. A universal tale of traumatic loss, a mother's hope and love and family relationships. We ship within 24 hours of your purchase with a Delivery Confirmation.   

My Review:  
What every mother fears, their child going missing. From the time we have our first child we do not want to take our eyes off of them. I know from the time our daughter was a toddler and trying to talk that she was a very out going child and that she never met a stranger. It used to drive me crazy sometimes when we went grocery shopping. From young to old she would smile and talk to everyone. I could not leave the cart at all. 

Well let me say that in the beginning of this book, it had me seating on the edge of my seat. I was so sucked into the pages of the first several chapters that it went every where. The only trouble that I did have was about the middle of the book I kinda lost my interest. Not sure if it was me or that it seemed to be a little slow. Maybe some what dis jointed. Wasn't quit sure. But once I got thru about three chapters I was able to finish reading it.  And when I did finish the last chapter I was glad I did. 

Author Jacquelyn Mitchards may not be at the top of my favorites but I will be checking out some of her other books. She has a unusual way about telling the story that I did find fascinating. So we will be reading more in the future. 

So for this book I am giving it my Breath of Life Rating of:

 Four Clock Rating:  

Disclosure: I did not receive the above book in exchange for my honest opinion and or review. But the Opinions are my own and yours may differ.  

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About the Author:  

Jacquelyn Mitchard’s first novel, The Deep End of the Ocean, was named by USA Today as one of the ten most influential books of the past 25 years – second only to the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling (but second by a long shot, it must be said.)
The Deep End of the Ocean was chosen as the first novel in the book club made famous by the TV host Oprah Winfrey, and transformed into a feature film produced by and starring Michelle Pfeiffer.
All of Mitchard’s novels have been greater or lesser bestsellers – and include The Most Wanted, A Theory of Relativity, Twelve Times Blessed, The Breakdown Lane and Cage of Stars. Critics have praised them for their authentic humanity and skilful command of story. Readers identify because they see reflected, in her characters – however extreme their circumstances – emotions they already understand.
Mitchard’s first story of adventure and her eighth novel of realistic contemporary fiction is Still Summer (August, 2007). In the same month, the paperback version of her most critically acclaimed novel, Cage of Stars (August 2007), appears from Warner Books.
Mitchard also has embarked on four novels for young adults.
The first, Now You See Her, from HarperTeen, is the story of a pampered, driven young actress who fakes her own abduction.
Next spring, also from HarperTeen, All We Know of Heaven will tell the story of lifetime best friends Bridget and Maureen, who are just sixteen when a fatal crash on an icy road and a poignant case of mistaken identity divide their small Minnesota town forever.
Now You See Her also is the first novel made “visible,” in a short series of beginning episodes on the Internet site YouTube, where actress Lauren Collins Peterson appears in several vlogs (or video blogs) as the fictional Hope Shay.
In summer, 2008, The Midnight Twins, first in a trilogy of teen mysteries about identical twin sisters born on New Year’s Eve – one a minute before and a minute after midnight – appears. Meredith and Mallory Brynn learn on the night they turn thirteen that their psychic abilities will force them to intervene in dire events, although one twin can see only the future and one can see only the past.
Meanwhile, Mitchard is completing her next adult novel and continues as a contributing editor for the Disney parenting magazine Wondertime, as well writing pieces for More, Parade and Real Simple, among other magazines. Her syndicated column for Tribune Media appears in newspapers around the nation.
At the local coffee shop, Mitchard is best-known as the mother of Rob, Dan, Marty, Francie, Mia, Will and Atticus – and she can repeat those names in sequence in the space of two seconds – the wife of handsome Chris Brent and the best pal of the extremely photogenic mutt, Hobbes.
They divide their time between a big Italianate house built by Mitchard’s husband on Story Hill in south central Wisconsin and a villa on the Amalfi Coast (well, one can dream!)
Her favorite color is periwinkle blue; her favorite holiday is Halloween; her favorite flower is freesia; her favorite word is "smite," and her second favorite is "Massachusetts"; her lucky number is 119 (anyone who can guess where that comes from wins a pair of startlingly cool earrings or a University of Wisconsin ball cap). Her favorite place on earth is Cape Cod – where, very unlike the writer Isak Dinesen in Nairobi – she owned a home for ten years, and does believe the shadows in the driveway remember her shape.
Her pet peeves are PhDs who cannot and will not learn the difference between “lie” and “lay” and family signs pluralized with apostrophes.
She still hopes that Dick Wolf can find it in his heart to let her appear on just ONE episode of any incarnation of ‘Law and Order,’ as has everyone else in America. She still is willing to play the role of a murder victim – except one found by earth-moving equipment in a landfill. 

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