The Dream Daughter

Finished January 20

The Dream Daughter by Diane Chamberlain

This book grabbed me right away with its premise. The book opens in 1965, when Caroline (Carly) Grant is just starting her career as a physical therapist. Her supervisor is debating assigning a new patient with a broken ankle to her, but is concerned about his mental state. Her decision is preempted when the young man, Hunter Poole, sees her across the room and calls out, asking for her to work with him. The two get along well, and share some interests. She's intrigued by his ability to know songs that have just been released. But Carly knows that he and her sister would have more in common.

The story then jumps forward five years. Carly married her childhood sweetheart Joe Sears, and moved with him to North Carolina as he enlisted in the military. But he was recently sent to Vietnam and was killed there. Carly is pregnant, and is getting her baby tested as there seem to be some issues. She is staying with her sister Patti, and her brother-in-law Hunter and their young son. 

When Carly's baby turns out to have a heart defect that will prove fatal after birth, Hunter reveals his secret to her. He has time traveled from the future, and he can send her into the future to get an operation that may save her child's life. Carly doesn't believe him, until he predicts some events that happen. And she remembers other things that have illustrated future knowledge over the years. And she determines to go into that future and try to save her baby's life. 

Carly is a strong woman, one who's taken on a career in her own time, and one who can think on her feet. She will need all of these attributes as she jumps to April 2001 and connects with Hunter's mother to get the help she needs to survive in that time and the paperwork she will need to get her medical assistance. 

As we see Carly face choice after choice, connect to the various people she meets from Hunter and his mother, to the hospital staff, the staff at the residence she stays at, and others, we see her caring nature, as well as her confidence in her own abilities grow. 

There were times that I wanted to put the book down as I was wary of the way the plot was heading, and times when I felt for Carly in her situation. This is a story of hope, of faith, of strength, and one that I thoroughly enjoyed.