Looking for Jane by Heather Marshall

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Canada

On Sale Date: March 1, 2002

Pages: 384

I reviewed a review copy from the publisher

2017: Angela Creighton runs her own antique store in Toronto, which she took over after her aunt retired . One day she finds a letter in an antique cabinet in the store.The letter is posted seven years ago and addressed to someone named Nancy Mitchell, who apparently has lived above the store many years ago. There were two letters in the envelope. The first letter that Angela read revealed that Nancy had been adopted and was written by the mother that had adopted Nancy. The second letter was written by Nancy’s biological mother. It revealed that her biological mother had not wanted to give her up, that she would continue to look for her everyday of her life, that she had named her Jane and that she had knitted the yellow booties for her. After reading the two letters, Angela is determined to find Nancy to give her the letters that belong to her.

Back in 1971, Evelyn Taylor is send to St.Agnes Home for fallen wome after she became accidentally pregnant. The home is run by nuns who are very strict and who treat the residents as prisoners , and who have to give up their newborn babies up for adoption children for adoption against their will. The home is secretly selling the babies for large sums of money to "rich Christian families', while they tell some of the young women their baby has died.

Evelyn never recovers from the trauma of having lost her child so early in life due to the forced adoption. She becomes a doctor and joins the secret undercover Jane network, to help young women who are in the same difficult position she once was, avd helps them getting an abortion, which was against the law at that time period. Women can call members of the secret network , and have to ask for 'Jane', a code word. Her doctors practice, and is raided by police many times, once even secretly by a undercover police officer pretending to be a women who needs an abortion. And the members of the Jane network have to change locations many times, but are persistent to continue their work untill the law changes and abortion becomes legal.Evelyn is determined to give wonen the choice she never had..

Nancy is pregnant in her early twenties in 1980 and has an illegal abortion in the office of doctor Evelyn Taylor who was risking her freedom and career in order to provide a choice for women. Nancy soon becomes part of the medical yet illegal network to keep girls and women away from dangerous back-alley sham abortions. Her grandmother was in a nursing home and Nancy usually visited with her once a week. On one such visit, Nancy’s grandmother made a comment that made no sense to her. Her grandmother had indicated that her parents had not brought her home from the hospital after her birth but had gotten her from somewhere. Nancy had always suspected that she might have been adopted but never knew for sure. She did not look like either one of her parents and her mother was so overprotective of her. One night when Nancy’s parents were out for the evening, Nancy started snooping around to find the proof she needed. Locked away in a box in the back of one her mother’s drawers, Nancy found a note from her biological mother and a pair of yellow booties. That was all the proof that Nancy needed but she never found the right moment to confront her parents and ask them to tell her the truth.

In the end, the lives of the three women come together, abd this leads to a dramatic revelation of dr Evelyn of her past , and how she escaped the  St.Agnes home,  that is immediately linked to Nancy.

This is a book that completely blows you  away. What a fantastic debut novel by Heather Marshall, which i hope will write more books like this. The storyline is fenomenal. The three main characters that don't know each other but are linked because of the past. The three character where all in their own way brilliant.

What struck me the most was dr.Evelyn's past in the St.Agnes home. Its hart to imagine that those institutions truly existed , and what horrors those young women had to endure. The parts where the operations of the Jane network where mindblowing, especially the scene with the undercover cop that hold dr Evelyn avd her staff at gunpoint.This was just so tragic , avd i was happy for the Jane's when abortion became legal..this is all set against a historic Canadian time period, based on historic facts.

I can't say enough how much i love this book with these three super strong ladies as main characters, I highly recommend reading Looking for Jane !!!!