The Game of Hearts

Adoptions pose questions, often avoided or unanswered, but when little Katie was given and then adopted in the 1940's, the folks of the tightly-knit farming community of Wheatland were in shock. How was Margie Wentworth, an unmarried woman of 45 years of age, able to adopt a baby? It just wasn't done! Who was the mother? Was it someone they knew? Suspicions, rumors, and questions ran through the party-phone lines and in and out of the homes of inquisitive residents of the town. The...
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Adoptions pose questions, often avoided or unanswered, but when little Katie was given and then adopted in the 1940's, the folks of the tightly-knit farming community of Wheatland were in shock. How was Margie Wentworth, an unmarried woman of 45 years of age, able to adopt a baby? It just wasn't done! Who was the mother? Was it someone they knew? Suspicions, rumors, and questions ran through the party-phone lines and in and out of the homes of inquisitive residents of the town. The Wentworth family, genteel and well-educated, was respected in the town. Zoe and Frederick Wentworth had reared three distinctive daughters. There were raised eyebrows when the oldest daughter, Camille, had left home right out of high school and curiosity as to why she didn't return home for decades. Margie, the middle child, attended college, but then chose to return home and live with her parents for the rest of their lives and to care for her mother until she died. Amanda, the youngest, was a college graduate and a science teacher. She married a local farmer's son, Robert Shaw, who joined the Marine Corps and went to World War II soon after the novel began. He was unaware that his wife had a baby by another man. All three sisters were distinctive characters one quiet and emotional; one bossy and devious; and the third, even in her absence, a force of friction and guilt, especially evident when she unexpectedly returned home in her mother's latter years. Katie, adopted by Margie, was oblivious to much of what went on, but she felt different and questioned her adoption. As she matured and attended college, her questions became obsessions. She had to know who she really was. She married and had children, but still desperately needed answers. The shocking truth of her parentage is revealed at the end of the novel. The dichotomy of deceitfulness, lying, immorality, and secrecy that plays against the elements of Christian values and morality grasps and holds the reader's attention as the characters play their cards in The Game of Hearts.