Keeping Lucy

This devastating tale of the lengths a mother would go to in order to protect her kid, based on actual events, is written by the author of Rust & Stardust.

1969 in Dover, Massachusetts. When Lucy, Ginny Richardson's infant daughter with Down syndrome, was taken from her, her heart broke. Her husband, Ab, sent Lucy to Willowridge, a special school for the "feeble-minded," as a result of pressure from his influential family. Ab made an effort to persuade Ginny that it was best. that it was appropriate for them to mourn their daughter as if she had passed away. that they ought to make an effort to go on.

However, Ginny realizes she can't leave her baby in Willowridge after her best friend Marsha shows her a series of stories two years later portraying Willowridge as a hell on earth with filthy halls full of abandoned kids. Ginny and Marsha drive to the school to see Lucy for themselves, with Ginny's six-year-old son in tow. What they discover sends them on a thrilling cross-state adventure and makes Ginny a wanted person.

Ginny confronts Ab and his controlling father for the right to keep Lucy, and it's the first time she has to put her strength to the test and take on the world. Keeping Lucy is a gripping depiction of the limits of a mother's love, racing from Massachusetts to the beaches of Atlantic City, via the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia to a roadside mermaid show in Florida.