Thank you to Kensington Publishing for the ARC of this book in exchange for an unbiased review.

This book was wonderful and enjoyable. I inhaled it in a couple of reading sessions.

We first meet Gabby, a fact checker for a magazine who has aspirations of being a writer for the same magazine. The problem is, she is too good at the job she currently holds and is being thwarted in making her dream come true. She is an only child and her parents are deceased.

The magazine editor decides to do a story on people finding relatives through the genealogy websites and asks all the staff to take the DNA test offered by one site to see what gets uncovered.

Isabella is a young, married women living in Puerto Rico. Her mother passed away and left her and a baby sister with their father. The father, in his grief, turns to drink. One night, while he is out at the bar with the baby, he passes out in the street and wakes up to an empty stroller. He can’t forgive himself for losing his daughter and life for the older daughter changes dramatically as her father isn’t there to protect her from the evils of the world as he is too busy drinking and grieving, now both for his lost daughter as well as his wife.

Isabella is able to make a happy marriage but she spends a lot of her life searching for her lost sister.

When Gabby receives the results of her DNA test, she is stunned to see that the company has indicated she has a relative. She can’t believe the test is correct. Isabella gets an email that there is a match for a sibling. While Gabby wants another test since the first one was in error, Isabella is hopeful that this Gabby person is her long-lost sister.

Gabby’s boss wants to send a staff member to Puerto Rico to get the story. Gabby wants to do it herself and, when she’s denied the chance by her boss, she quits her job. Skeptical that this is anything but a mistake, she goes to Puerto Rico anyway and meets Isabella.

The story takes off from there on the lives of these two women, solving mysteries for each, and learning about each other. One is convinced she has found her sister at last and one is convinced there’s been a huge mistake. This makes for some great conflict in the storyline.

The way the author weaves the stories of the two women is brilliant. As well, she has captured Puerto Rico and its beauty and culture and I’m not surprised to learn she spent a lot of time there over the years visiting her grandmother. The island becomes a character itself in the excellent descriptions of various places in the story.

If you enjoy multi-cultural stories with heart, this one is highly recommended.  Five Stars.

BLURB:

What if your most basic beliefs about your life were suddenly revealed to be a lie?

As the fact checker for a popular magazine, Gabby DiMarco believes in absolute, verifiable Truths—until they throw the facts of her own life into question. The genealogy test she took as research for an article has yielded a baffling result: Gabby has a sister—one who’s been desperately trying to find her. Except, as Gabby’s beloved parents would confirm if they were still alive, that’s impossible.

Isabella Ruiz can still picture the face of her baby sister, who disappeared from the streets of San Juan twenty-five years ago. Isabella, an artist, has fought hard for the stable home and loving marriage she has today—yet the longing to find Marianna has never left. At last, she’s found a match, and Gabby has agreed to come to Puerto Rico.

But Gabby, as defensive and cautious as Isabella is impulsive, offers no happy reunion. She insists there’s been a mistake. And Isabella realizes that even if this woman is her sister, she may not want to be.
With nothing—or perhaps so much—in common, Gabby and Isabella set out to find the truth, though it means risking everything they’ve known for an uncertain future—and a past that harbors yet more surprises . . .