• Author: Lurlene McDaniel
  • ISBN:  978-0-385-73460-8


Click Here To Purchase Heart to Heart (Lurlene McDaniel)

I am…floored.  Strange way to begin a review, I suppose, but I’ve always prided myself on honesty and that’s the most truthful statement I can think of.  This is one of the most tragic, and hopeful, stories I’ve ever read.  In fact, the book, itself, is tiny – like a book of poetry written years ago that’s been unearthed to share its’ poignancy with the masses.  This work of “art” certainly proves that enormously wonderful things come in extremely small packages.

We begin with Kassey.  Kassey is a teenage girl who is doing fairly well in the world.  She has a great mom who works extremely hard to provide for their small family; her dad disappeared when she was only three, choosing a life of drugs instead of fatherhood.  But even with his departure, Kassey and her mom have a good life.  In the summer right before starting seventh grade, Kassey is hospitalized for a sports injury.  In the bed beside her is a young girl named Elowyn – who’s also in for some bone “repairs.”  They strike up a friendship in that hospital room.  Kassey loves Elowyn almost immediately.  She’s funny, a little brash, and has just moved to Georgia and lives down the road from Kassey’s house. 

Elowyn’s parents are what you’d find in a “perfect” family television show.  Mom is artsy and loves to bake and decorate; Dad is the perfect father who loves his little Sugar Plum.  And Elowyn loves everything French.  Her bedroom is decorated in French landscapes; her room smells like lavender, which is her favorite scent; and, her life is great…now that she has a best friend in Kassey.  These two girls do almost everything together; Kassey even goes on family vacations with Elowyn and her folks.  When Elowyn finds her “perfect boyfriend,” however, things go a little south.  Kassey is “pushed” aside to make room for true love, but she and Elowyn remain thick as thieves.  They are truly…invincible.

Then, one night, a crying phone call from Elowyn lets Kassey know that she’s driving on a country road all upset because she’d seen her boyfriend holding hands with another girl.  It’s raining…the roads are slick…and the next morning Elowyn is hooked up to machines in a hospital.  Her brain is swelling and she is basically…deceased. 

Kassey’s world is turned upside down.  Soon the machines are shut off, and her friend is gone.  On Elowyn’s drivers’ license she’d picked to be an organ donor, and soon her heart is given to a young girl by the name of Arabeth who has been waiting forever to be able to “live” again.  Arabeth has her own tragic story; her father was a soldier killed in Afghanistan.  When Arabeth receives the organ, she finds herself doing and saying the oddest things.  She suddenly wants to eat French food, and buy lavender-scented soap.  She starts writing with her left hand sometimes, even though she’s always been right-handed. 

Arabeth meets Elowyn’s family and friends, forming an instant attachment to Kassey.  And the relationships that begin between friends, as well as Elowyn’s parents who see their own daughter “shining” through this stranger, are overwhelming to read.

This story is based on the concept that a great deal of people believe in – that cells can store memories of the body and can be passed through an organ transplant to the recipient.  Doctors and scientists, of course, say this is impossible – that only the brain can store memories.  But…miracles happen every day that science can not explain.  I’ve seen many of my father’s traits come out in my own little girl – things she says and does that she can’t possibly know about, and she says she visits with my father all the time.  Is that a scientific fact?  No.  But I certainly believe.

This is a fantastic, heart-wrenching story that will strengthen your faith and belief, at a time when the world seems to be losing all hope.  Bravo!

 Click Here To Purchase Heart to Heart (Lurlene McDaniel)