Until I Find You

This was a good one. A mystery/thriller type about a blind woman who has lost her husband and has a newborn baby. So life is difficult for her but she faces it everyday for her son. But something happens to her son. He gets swapped with another baby and she knows and realizes but no-one else seems to believe her. It is a great book. Very interesting and keeps you wanting to read, read, and read it some more. You never know how it all plays out.

Rebecca Grey is recently widowed and caring for her three-month-old son Jackson. She is also coping with a degenerative eye disease that will eventually leave her blind. She is lucky to have a circle of supportive mothers that meet daily at a nearby park. These friends support Rebecca as she raises her child without a spouse and almost no vision.

One day at the park, Rebecca faints. Her friends bring her home to rest and take turns watching Jackson until she feels better. Later when she retrieves Jackson from the crib, she is shocked that the baby does not feel like her son. Rebecca is convinced that someone has switched her baby. Her friends have trouble believing her story and feel that she is suffering from stress and exhaustion. Rebecca won’t give up on finding her son, even if she has to do it alone.

Until I Find You is the third novel by Rea Frey. This novel reminded me of the multitude of feelings when first caring for a newborn and the challenges with making friends. This domestic thriller is satisfying and addictive.

Author Rea Frey says her “passion in life is telling stories, connecting with readers, and helping other aspiring authors tell their stories too.” Crafting Until I Find You, her fourth novel, required courage. Frey describes it as “one of the most humbling — and terrifying — experiences of” her life. The challenge of creating Rebecca’s world in which she is “stripped of sight” not only made her “stretch, grow, and think about creating a story in a different way.” It also caused Frey to confront her own fear of going blind due to “astigmatisms, vitreous detachments, floaters, nearsightedness, and farsightedness, . . .” In the process, she says she found it “empowering to realize you can still have a full, beautiful life without vision.” That aspect of her lead character’s life might have proven sufficiently difficult for another author. But Frey upped the ante, making Rebecca a woman without a husband, parent, or support system. “I wanted to put an extraordinary woman in the toughest circumstances imaginable and see if she could endure.”

Rebecca suffers from Stargardt disease which is causing her to gradually lose her central field of vision. With her remaining sight, she sees shapes shifting in the dark to often confusing and terrifying effect. She places bells on Jackson’s ankle and uses the sound to locate his precise location. Rebecca was a professional cellist, traveling the world to play with celebrated symphony orchestras. Now she gives cello lessons in her home as she adjusts to all of the recent changes in her life: blindness, widowhood, and the loss of her mother just two months ago. Rebecca’s other senses have become heightened and when she holds Jackson, she is familiar with the shape of his face, the way he smells, the small patch of eczema behind his ear, and his unique cry.

Rebecca is undeniably exhausted so when she has the sense that someone is watching and following her, accidentally leaves her door unlocked, and discovers Jackson’s playpen not where she left it, she questions herself. That changes, however, after she faints in the park one day. The neighborhood mothers who have become her friends insist that she go home with Crystal, an interior decorator who was also recently widowed. They met in a support group, and Crystal’s daughter, Savi, is a talented budding musician and one of Rebecca’s students. Jess, whose infant son, Baxter, is close to Jackson’s age, convinces Rebecca to take sleeping pills and finally get some rest. Rebecca sees the day’s events as a “wake-up call. How can I be expected to take care of an infant if I can’t even take care of myself.” She resolves to concentrate on her own well-being by getting more sleep, eating healthy food, and hiring a nanny. And definitely not think about her ex-boyfriend, Jake, the homicide detective with whom she has just reconnected after being apart for years. When their careers did not mesh, they broke up. But Rebecca never forgot Jake . . . and he never married.

When Rebecca wakes up several hours later, her world spins off its axis. She picks Jackson up from his crib when he cries. But as she runs her hands over his face and body, takes in his scent, and listens to his cries, she knows. “There’s a baby in this room: a baby who feels like Jackson, who looks like Jackson, who could probably pass for Jackson if someone wasn’t paying close enough attention.” A mother, however, sighted or not, “knows her child. A mother always knows.” And Rebecca is absolutely sure that she is holding a child who is not her son. But who is he? How did he end up in Jackson’s crib while she slept?

And where is Jackson?

Frey has risen to the challenge she established for herself, deftly constructing Rebecca’s world and populating it with a cast of supporting characters, including Jake, Jess, Crystal, and little Savi, who are empathetic and believable. Rebecca relates her experiences in a first-person narrative while Crystal’s story unfolds in alternating third-person chapters. Frey quickly establishes Crystal as a complicated woman harboring secrets, injecting hints about her past at expertly-timed junctions, including her relationship with her late husband, Paul. Savi is acting out in the wake of her father’s untimely and tragic death, and Crystal is not sure whether to believe Savi or her nanny, Pam, when unsettling events take place.

But the story is focused squarely on Rebecca and her unshakable belief that the baby she now finds herself caring for — even nursing at one point — is not the little boy she gave birth to. Frey traces Rebecca’s encounters with the local police, who dismiss her contentions, and Rebecca’s growing fear that she could ultimately lose custody of her child, judged unable to care for him. Everyone in Rebecca’s life questions her insistence that Jackson is missing and a search for him must be initiated without further delay. She knows the odds that Jackson will be found safe and unharmed diminish with each passing hour.

Frey depicts Rebecca’s heartbreak, isolation, and anguish with compassion, credibly showing that she cannot just simply wait for the police to assist her. Instead, Rebecca takes chances that could be deemed foolish through which Frey invites readers to ponder what they would do in similar circumstances. All of Frey’s key characters are flawed, but empathetic as they navigate stressors in the only ways they know how.

Frey keeps the story forging ahead at a steady, unrelenting pace that accelerates as Rebecca gradually inches closer to the truth. With readers fully invested in the outcome of Rebecca’s search for her child, Frey’s plot is revealed as clever, tautly constructed, and emotionally resonant. Rebecca’s complicated feelings are raw, heartbreaking, and relatable, and she proves herself to be resilient, stronger than she ever knew she could be, and absolutely, unshakably committed to her child.

Until I Find You is a captivating mystery replete with fascinating characters, surprising plot twists, and emotional gut-punches that will keep readers reading past their bedtimes in a quest to learn whether Jackson is still alive . . . and if he will be reunited with the mother who will not stop looking for him until she finds him.

Thanks to NetGalley for an Advance Reader’s Copy of the book and to St. Martin’s Press for a paperback copy.

Rea Frey did a wonderful job of telling this story about the visually impaired Bec, who has lost both her spouse and mother and must take care of her baby in a world she can barely see. She feels someone is watching her, following her, entering her house and then the worst- no one believes her baby has been switched. How she deals with everything will make you want to keep reading till the very end.

This was a very good book. It did start out a little slow, but picked up quickly. I felt for the mother and wanted to go there and help her! It is a must read! I would recommend this book.

This was a fast-moving book. I couldn’t put it down. I can’t even imagine being in Rebecca’s shoes having a degenerative disease where you are losing your eye sight. Rebecca is one tough Momma. She is the strongest character in this book. Taking care of a baby by herself as she tries to come to terms with the death of her spouse and Mother in the same year. Rebecca knows every square inch of her son and when she picks him up after sleeping all day due to a fainting spell and lack of sleep she finds that this is not her son. She finds no one believes her and even an ex-boyfriend who resurfaces and helps her track down her son has doubts about Rebecca’s wellbeing and stability. A mother knows her children and she’ll do whatever she can to get her baby back and find the parents of this baby she is carrying for. I highly recommend this book!

Wow! This is a scary and amazing read all in one.
I love a great thriller and when it sends a panic through me, it’s that much better.
Think about it- what if you were able to see and everything was OK. Then you are diagnosed with a degenerative eye condition and your colorful world gets darker and darker step by step?
Then add a baby into the mix? I would be panicking each night I go to sleep – will I wake up in the morning and not be able to see my baby? Hear his cries and have to slowly feel my way around to his crib?
Just saying that out loud – thank goodness my youngest is almost 11. There is no way I could survive that scenario.
Not only losing your site second by second, but add to it the feeling of being watched. That totally gives me heart palpitations- ! I’m not giving away any more details. Buy it now.

I enjoyed and loved this novel.

What a fantastic read! This was such a sensory experience for me, as Rea Frey immersed me into the world of a blind woman, and a mother so desperate to find her son. With a surprising twist I was taken into a roller coaster of emotions. A poignant and satisfying read that is compelling as it was riveting.

I highly recommend this book. Pick it up and you won’t be able to put it down.

Rebecca Gray has a degenerative eye disease and her world becomes darker every day. She has a photographic memory and has all her local routes memorized by steps. Her husband dies before her son is born and they her mother dies also. She is raising her son on her own. During an outing at the park her son goes missing. Nobody believes her as they all say her son is right there but she is positive this baby is not hers. A mother knows her baby. with or without sight she is positive. This story is her fight to find her son and to get others to believe her..Totally believable? Not sure but good story none the less.

Until I Find You from Rea Frey kept me captivated from start to finish. It was an emotional and suspenseful read. Rebecca Gray, Bec, is a widow, mother and slowly losing her sight due to a degenerative disease. Having recently lost now only her husband, she also loses her mother. On her own, she is trying so hard to be independent. On a day she is out with her son, something happens and she is sure someone swapped her son, but no one believes her. What follows is her journey to discover the truth and it will keep you at the edge of your seat!

Happy reading!