About the Book

Book: Borrowed Lives

Author: Carol McClain

Genre: Contemporary Fiction

Release date: March 2021

God Only Lends Us Those We Love for a Season

Distraught from recent tragedy, Meredith Jaynes takes pity on a young girl who steals from her. Meredith discovers “Bean” lives in a hovel mothering her two younger sisters. The three appear to have been abandoned. With no other homes available, Social Services will separate the siblings. To keep them together, Meredith agrees to foster them on a temporary basis.

Balancing life as a soap maker raising goats in rural Tennessee proved difficult enough before the siblings came into her care. Without Bean’s help, she’d never be able to nurture these children warped by drugs and neglect—let alone manage her goats that possess the talents of Houdini. Harder still is keeping her eccentric family at bay.

Social worker Parker Snow struggles to overcome the breakup with his fiancée. Burdened by his inability to find stable homes for so many children who need love, he believes placing the abandoned girls with Meredith Jaynes is the right decision. Though his world doesn’t promise tomorrow, he hopes Meredith’s does.

But she knows she’s too broken.

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About the Author

Carol McClain is the award-winning author of four novels dealing with real people facing real problems. She is a consummate encourager, and no matter what your faith might look like, you will find compassion, humor and wisdom in her complexly layered, but ultimately readable work.

Aside from writing, she’s a skilled stained-glass artist, an avid hiker and photographer. She lives in East Tennessee. Her most recent interests are her two baby goats Peanut & Buttercup. Like all babies, they love sitting on our laps and being bottle fed.

More from Carol

People.

Their lives are messy, destructive, full of mistakes.

Mostly, their lives are beautiful.

For years, I worked with recovering addicts. When I first heard their tales, shock and disbelief overwhelmed me. I couldn’t understand the pain inflicted upon them by addicted parents or what they did in their own lives.

Without Christ, no redemption could be found in their misery. Doesn’t sound like a fun read, huh? Many recover from their addictive patterns. In the interim, the foster care system serves their families wonderfully.

All these factors, coupled with the theme that lives are only leant to us for a season create a story of hope, humor and redemption.

Aside from seeing faith in Jesus change people’s lives—there are always goats.

I love goats, but my husband hesitated in including them in our lives. Seeing as I live the lives of my characters (I am daft), I gave my protagonist in Borrowed Lives Nubian goats. I raised them in my younger years, and by including them in my story, I could have goats vicariously.

Couple the above (redemption from addiction, foster care, and my obsession for goats) with my love of East Tennessee where the people are kind and friendly, and the scenery unparalleled, Borrowed Lives was born.

My Thoughts

Borrowed Lives is the first book that I have read that is written by Carol McClain. I am so glad that I got to be a part of this tour. One of my most favorite thing in the world is to read about real feeling characters. Ones that are broken and have messy pasts, ones that are not always full of sunshine. This was a great story.

Meredith Jaynes could have turned her back on the young girl who is stealing from her. Meredith is a goat farmer who creates soaps from goats milk. She starts to notice that clothes and such are missing from her home. She finds out that the culprit is Bean, who has been living with her siblings. Instead of turning her back, she chose to show her the love of Christ. She takes in the young girl and her siblings so that they are not separated and lost in the foster system.

The siblings parents are missing. They have been neglected and are scared. This book will take you on an emotional roller coaster. This book was a great read. The whole crew of characters will grow and evolve through the story. I hope there is a sequel to this story - I want to know what happens next!

I received a copy of this book through the Celebrate Lit Blogging Program, all thoughts are my own.