Book Review: The Offering by Angela Hunt

About the Book: From bestselling author Angela Hunt, the heart-wrenching story of a young mother who unknowingly gave away her own child after serving as a surrogate for a childless couple.

After growing up as an only child, Amanda Lisandra wants a big family. But since she and her soldier husband can't afford to have more children right away, Mandy decides to earn money as a gestational carrier for a childless couple. She loves being pregnant, and while carrying the child she dreams of having her own son and maybe another daughter. . .

Just when the nearly perfect pregnancy is about to conclude, unexpected tragedy enters Mandy's world and leaves her reeling. Devastated by grief, she surrenders the child she was carrying and struggles to regain her emotional equilibrium.

Two years later she studies a photograph of the baby she bore and wonders if the unthinkable has happened---could she have inadvertently given away her own biological child? Over the next few months Mandy struggles to decide between the desires of her grief-stricken heart and what's best for the little boy she has never known.

My Thoughts: Wow, this book packs an emotional punch!  Angela Hunt is one of my favourite authors and she delivers another great book in The Offering.

Dealing with infertility, adoption, surrogacy and invitro fertilization this book brings up many complex ethical issues.  Assuming a belief that life begins at conception (or the joining of the egg and sperm) invitro fertilization can still be an option - with certain restrictions.  Those holding this view would not fertilize and attempt to implant more little lives than you'd be willing to carry (no reductive abortions!), and would also not freeze them for later potential use due to the 50% likelihood of survival upon thawing.  Sometime science just goes too far with the pursuit of biological children.

As someone who has not struggled with infertility, I cannot truly empathize with those who do.  I can only imagine the heartbreak and struggle that would accompany this.  But I loved how Amanda came to realize that blood is not the trump card - love is.  

I highly recommend this book!


Thank you to Litfuse Publicity for organizing this tour and providing me with my complimentary review copy.