The Mother I Trusted Was The Aunt Who Stole My Life

by Emily Ross

Sarah Sterling thought she was just cleaning out a hoarding house, but she was actually excavating her own stolen history. As the 'poor relation' in the wealthy Sterling dynasty, Sarah has always been the family janitor. Now, she is tasked with emptying her Aunt Clara’s rotting Victorian mansion to pay for her son Leo’s leukemia treatments. The family calls Clara crazy, a spinster who needed to be put away decades ago. But when Sarah smashes through a drywall partition, she finds a pristine nursery sealed since 1988—and a birth certificate with her footprints but Clara’s name. Suddenly, Sarah realizes the woman she calls 'Mother' isn't her savior; she's her kidnapper. And she holds the purse strings to the only medical care keeping Leo alive. Now Sarah must prove a thirty-year-old crime before Clara’s memory fades forever, or risk burying the only genetic match who can save her son. She must decide: be the grateful daughter, or the mother who burns the family down to save her child.