Into Thin Air by Caroline Leavitt

A story of abandonment and the effects that this has a decade later on all three parties involved.

We have Lee very young, in love and married and all of a sudden pregnant. A pregnancy she never planned, she did not even think of it till it became so apparent that you could not avoid it. The husband who adores her, and for whom the pregnancy was the crowning glory of his life. That his wife was going to have his child. It was sad seeing the joy, the anticipation of this young husband, when all along you read and felt the despair of the young mother at the same time.

Just after the birth Lee abandons the baby and disappears. Immense time and money is spent on trying to find her and then it peters out because of lack of any evidence that Lee was taken by force. Jim tries to make a life for himself and succeeds in doing so, all the time balancing looking after the baby and trying to forget his wife. 

Many years later, Lee is now in another relationship which also has a partner who seems to feel for her much more than what she feels for him. This all of a sudden triggers in her a need to see the family she left behind and she makes the journey back to find that Jim has settled into a second marriage and to all intents the family is secure and happy. How Lee coming into this marriage creates dissension and strife not just between Lee and Jim's second wife but the trouble created by Lee for their daughter who finds the situation too difficult to handle. A dead mother now resurrected?

Lee seemed to be a spoilt girl who wanted only what she wanted and had no qualms about reaching in and taking it, despite adverse repercussions on anyone else. Lee was not willing to think of the bigger picture - the welfare of her daughter and move on. She felt she was owed something by the whole and thought of herself only.  Jim obviously hadn't got over her abandonment and obviously felt something for her because he kept making excuses to his wife which were for the most part lame and inexcusable. 

The story drew one in because you did want to know what the outcome was going to be. It was settled in a not so satisfactorily manner but then again that is life. 

The book was sent to me by Netgalley courtesy of Open Road Integrated Media.