The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon by Linda MacKillop

Painful recollections of her husband, her children, and former friendships haunt 75-year-old Eva Gordon even as she’s aware that “her mind didn’t always work correctly, but functioned in many ways like a congested highway in need of a traffic cop.” Sometimes her mind is distressingly blank; at other times it’s filled “with talking memories, a collection of chattering people crossing the decades, some not knowing each other in life.”    

To her family and friends, it’s obvious that Eva can no longer live on her own. So she moves from Cape Cod to Boston to live with Breezy, her granddaughter. But Eva hates the city and feels the relentless call to return to the home she’s known for many years. She keeps a suitcase packed and hidden away and makes repeated escape attempts to return to Cape Cod. But where is it? And how can she get there?  

Eva is distressed to learn that Breezy will be marrying her fiancé Ian and moving to Try Again Farm where Ian lives with his elderly uncle George. Breezy invites Eva to live at the farm, too, but the elderly woman “didn’t want a secondhand life where she lived with their wallpaper, their kitchen dishes, and their scratchy tweed couch and family photos on the wall.”   

Eva’s had enough unwelcome surprises in her life, and moving to the farm sounds like one more. But in a delightful, slowly unfolding string of events, Eva is enfolded into the unique, charming community of Try Again Farm, finding family, healing, forgiveness, and faith—“such an unexpected surprise in Eva’s life.”   

The Forgotten Life of Eva Gordon, a gentle novel for adult readers, is an ode to new beginnings even when damage seems irreversible and a celebration of family where broken people find a place to belong. Through well-developed characters and an emotionally rich plot, author Linda MacKillop deftly weaves tender hints of God’s character as he is revealed in Scripture, patiently, eagerly waiting for the return of his prodigal children. (Kregel)