Until I Find You

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.