I would like to thank Little, Brown and NetGalley for giving me the opportunity to read ‘Before I Was Yours’ by Virginia MacGregor in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.
Seven-year-old Jonah lives in Kenya with his mother Grace who decides to send him to London with Mr Sir as she wants him to learn to read and to be a True English Gentleman. When they arrive at Heathrow Airport on Christmas Day Mr Sir leaves him and disappears. DI Peter Taylor is alerted and Trudi from Hounslow Adoption Services is brought in to take care of Jonah.
Rosie and Sam Keep desperately want children of their own and despite going through IVF have been unsuccessful. As Rosie in particular yearns to be a mother, they put their names forward for adoption and despite originally wanting a little blonde girl they’re offered Jonah. At the beginning Jonah finds it hard to accept Rosie as his new mama but strikes up a friendship with Sam. Just when everything is going well Jonah becomes ill.
‘Before I Was Yours’ is a beautiful written novel and I was hooked from page one. The issues of adoption and cancer were handled sensitively and with compassionate. Towards the final few chapters I was in tears and needed tissues more than once. I’m sorry I’ve come to the end as I wanted the story to go on forever.
Thank you Virginia MacGregor for writing such a wonderful story.

Before I Was Yours

Sam and Rosie have always wanted children but it just hasn't happened. They decide to go down the adoption route and meet Jonah and their family finally feels complete...but will they get their happily ever after?

I really enjoyed this story. It's highly emotive and heart wrenching in places but thoroughly enjoyable and beautiful. Definitely recommended, four stars.

First line: "<i>In the middle of the night, at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, a seven-year-old boy kisses his mama goodbye.</i>"

What a beautiful novel about adoption and the many trials associated with it. There were some added issues that made the novel even more complex, which I won't get into because it would ruin the intricate plot of the novel.

I loved the characters - Rosie, Trudi, Jonah, Sam, Peter, Alice, and many others. They were all dynamic and lovable in their own way. The story was set up so that you learned about each character in different ways. Some characters narrated at different times in the novel, which made their point of view, thoughts and personality more tangible.

This novel was full of emotions and left me with various feelings of heartbreak, sadness, anger, and happiness...and many more in regards to the hopes and dreams of Rosie and Sam, the despair and novelty experienced by Jonah, and the sense of purpose Trudi has in many situations.

I found this novel interesting to see how a boy coming from a completely different country (Kenya) could adapt to living in a new country (England)...as well as adapting to a new way of life, and a new family.

All in all, I really enjoyed this novel and am quite happy to have gotten the chance to read it courtesy of NetGalley.

I devoured Before I Was Yours in a day and just could not put it down. Jonah is brought to the UK and then abandoned. The story follows the after effects of this dramatic event and shows the impact it has on everyone in Jonah's life.

The characters are beautifully written and easy to empathise with. I loved the way that Jonah's story was revealed gradually throughout the book so that my feelings for Mr Sir kept changing.

The only aspect I didn't like as much was the dialogue between Jonah and Alice. I felt that this was too adult for discussions between 7 year olds.

Today my brain stops and my heart speaks ....
Mama... I hear you in the wind and in the rain... I hear you in the sun and the stars... I hear you in the sky and the sea... I hear you in my heart with me...
The most heart wrenching emotion, pure love.. Love between a mother and a child.. timeless, precious, love as old as the earth itself and perhaps older. Love which resides in every cell of the mother, both the birth and the adopted.. Being a mother is not only by the birth, but that's a small part, but its in the heart, pure and loving.
The story is simple but complex, said in different points of view, moving between past and present, adding to its depth but the prose is sheer poetry. Every character is flawed but brimming with unconditional love just different ways to express it. The topic is very relevant in today's world.. Adoption... Every child deserves love and protection and none should grow up before their time.
Jonah is brought to London by his Mister Sir and abandoned at the airport. Trudi is brought in as his social worker, who along with DI Peter Taylor, works hard to understand his story and to find a suitable home for Jonah. Enter Rosie and Sam, who can't have children yet open their hearts to adoption. Jonah falls sick.. And then comes a race against time to save him, find his mama and discover the reason why a seven year old travels all the way from Lamu, Kenya to London, UK.
Will Jonah open up and accept Sam and Rosie, what is he hiding, who is Mister Sir whom Jonah trusts so much, where is his mama, will he get to meet her, why did she give him up, where is his papa.. What is wrong with his health, will he be ok, will there be peace and happiness in all these searching hearts..
I had so many questions when I started this book. I was prepared to be just coursing along casually till bit by bit, I got immersed in Jonah, Rosie and Sam. I lived their emotions, I saw their story and I cried for them. Each one is so strong, be it mama Grace, real father Odikinyi, Sam, Rosie, grandma Flick, best friend Alice, social worker Trudi and DI Peter Taylor, even the pet cat Hop. Each had had their share of hardships in life but there is a beautiful common thread which joins them : strength, and a heart which keeps on loving.
So many times in our work we are told to be professional but I realize this book teaches that it's always better to be humane than to be human. And we judge people so wrongly, we do not always know their circumstances to understand their actions as it happened for me regarding Jonah's mama. I judged and I was so wrong. Sometimes courage comes in the action of sacrifice.
There are few circumstances in the beginning of the book which are a bit fantastical, but they do not detract from the emotions and the story which just continues to capture our hearts.
Few lines from the book
A child can have two mothers, and one doesn't cancel the other out. Because a child can never have too much love...

3 stars. This was an interesting storyline with some very likeable characters.

The novel intrigued me as I got a glimpse into the lives of potential adoptive parents. My heart breaks for what some of these couples have to go through in the hopes of bringing home a child to love and cherish. I thought the author did a fantastic job with this piece of the story.

While this was a unique and captivating storyline, I felt that much of the story detail was rather far-fetched. For me, I need to be able to believe the plot details to truly immerse myself in the characters’ lives and fully enjoy the novel. I found the novel to be entertaining and I grew to really love some of the characters, yet for me all of this was somewhat overshadowed by the lack of believability for most of the story.

A big thank you to NetGalley, Sphere and Virigina Macgregor for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review!

A sad book about infertility, adoption, Africa illnesses and families. Little jonah has to grow up quickly in a world that he does not know and hide the truth he has been sworn to keep.

I gradually fell in love with this book. Emotive and beautiful, with characters who worm their way into your affections, until you genuinely care for them, reminiscent of some of the plot lines. A really lovely read. I'm just disappointed I reached the end so quickly!

What a wonderful book! Domestic drama is by far my favourite genre of novel and when they involve young children, so much the better. This book added an extra bonus for me in that the subject matter was around adoption, specifically, British Local Authority adoption. A couple very close to my heart became a family of 4 last year when they adopted their two little boys and so it's a subject with meaning for me.
The book opens with a brief glimpse into two lives; that of Jonah, a little boy leaving behind his Kenyan homeland and his beloved Mama. And that of Rosie a midwife who dreams of having a baby of her own. On the face of it, Jonahs story seems to be a straightforward example of people trafficking gone wrong, as 'Mister Sir' his travelling companion leaves him at the airport and disappears when the promised "Aunt Igwe" fails to materialise to collect Jonah. But very soon Jonah's insistence that Mister Sir is a good man becomes a compelling argument and you really can't help but wonder how and why Mama and Mr Sir were connected and why Mama had chosen to send Jonah to the UK, even though there would be no relative to meet him there.
Enter social worker Trudi, who burns with the injustice of what happened to Jonah and who is determined to write those wrongs by finding him a family in the U.K., regardless of Jonah's reluctance. While I often disagreed with Trudi's opinions on what was best for Jonah, or on Mister Sir and his role in the drama, I respected her and liked her very much. It is an easy thing for an author to engender respect in a character that the reader will have the same opinions as and agree with, but it takes skill to make a reader accept a characters differences and position and still root for them.
Sadly I can't say for the policeman, DI Peter Taylor. His harder exterior did contrast well with Trudi's emotional response to the call out to the airport but thereafter I didn't really want to him or see why Trudi did.
At first Rosie was a similarly unappealing character. For a midwife she seemed dour and self absorbed, though having experienced fertility problems I do get that it can make people very different from the person they would have become if they hadn't walked down that road. I did get the feeling that the author herself preferred Sam.
Sam is your typical storybook Prince Charming. Handsome, kind and creates beautiful driftwood sculptures in the garage. He wants to adopt, for his sake as well as Rosie's, but there is a strong desire to make her happy that overrides his own feelings. Sam approaches the adoption process in a far more sensible and practical way than Rosie.
The blurb leads us to believe that this is a 'boy meets parents, birth family come back to claim him' story but the novel is so much deeper than that and that isn't actually the worst case scenario that you think it will be when you begin the book. Running through the book is a small, subtle but powerful message of the beauty of literature and its power to move you, to empower you and to bring you together with people. It has certainly made me want to re-read the Tempest soon!
The novel explores family and what it means to be family, whether blood or love ties are stronger or should be considered more important, on what the rights of the child really mean, on self sacrifice and love and friendship and acceptance of a life that doesn't go to plan. I cried on more than one occasion and with more than one emotion and for me, Virginia Macgregor gets it just right and ends it perfectly. This is one of those books where I'm still thinking "I wonder what Jonah is doing now?" I normally hate it when books are turned into movies but as long as Macgregor had control of the script, this would be a fantastic film.

Thoroughly enjoyed this story. Fantastic ending a real heartjerker. Real story real nitty plot involving the heartbreak of adoption.
Fantastic!!!

The cover and description of the book is what drew me in to want to read it - I had never read a fiction book around adoption before; most books are always the typical chick lit girl-meets-boy romance so I want something different, and I certainly got it with this book!

I found myself staying up late to read another chapter, thinking about the book when I wasn't reading it - the story and characters really stuck in my mind and became real. I loved it! There's so many twists and turns you just didn't know what to expect, rather than other stories where you just know where it's heading. I loved it and I'm looking forward to more from this author!

Macgregor really knows how to pull at the heartstrings. At first I was a little irritated with Rosie because she had this all or nothing insanity about her that seemed to border on a selfish obsession but then I realized as someone who has never been in her position it was really unfair to judge what someone like her would do so I tried to read from a more sympathetic stance. That goes to a lot of Macgregor's writing though that she so deeply examines the emotional spectrum of what someone who desperately wants a child feels and what they're willing to do (within legal and moral reasons) to obtain one.

I liked how she tried to capture the culture and settings in Africa as I felt like I was walking on the beach with them at one point. You could just tell she wanted to give honor and respect to how this story started and one of the worst plagues that affects so many over there.

As a parent I felt myself get deeply pulled into the story as I began to put myself in her shoes and cheer Rosie on as she found that Mama Bear strength to want to protect her 'cub' at all costs. She became this amazing hero as she tapped this incredibly deep reservoir of love and selflessness for an innocent child.

When Macgregor threw a couple of more twists at the end I felt myself holding my breath hoping that she would PLEASE give these poor people a happy ending after everything they had to endure.