Reunion by Karen Kingsbury

Elizabeth found a lump in her breast on March 7th. She has it tested and the cancer has come back. It's stronger and more aggressive than before. The doctor does a double Mastectomy. Elizabeth decides she wants a reunion with all her kids on Sanibel Island, Florida. They later find out that the surgery and treatments were not successful and Elizabeth is given 3-4 months to live.

Erin and Sam are in the process of adopting a little girl, who's due soon. Her birth parents try to blackmail them into giving them more money by telling them they won't give them the baby if Erin and Sam don't give them the money. Later they get another call from the social worker, who tells them Candy, the birthmother of the first baby has been charged with abandonment after leaving her baby with the neighbor and never coming back. Erin and Sam agree to adopt her after all and they also surprise everyone by adopting the baby's two older sisters.

Their first adoption fell through and they were devastated, but they found Heidi Jo, a little girl who's mixed race and was abandoned, left at the hospital after her mom gave birth to her in a bedroom. She is immediately available for adoption. Erin and Sam are thrilled and immediately agree to adopt her.

Ashley finally made an appointment with the doctor after finding out she tested positive for AIDS. The doctor does another blood test and they find out she was a false positive, which means that she tested NEGATIVE for AIDS.

Landon asks Ashley to marry him and she says yes! They set the wedding date for July 19th

Kari announces that she is pregnant again.

The book also goes back into the past a little bit telling how Elizabeth got pregnant and had a child before they were married. Her parents forced her to go away when she was pregnant and to put the baby up for adoption. She came back to them for a month, and by that time she was 8 so she moved in with John and they got married soon after that.

The child's name is Dayne Matthews and he's a popular actor from Los Angeles. Luke is doing an intership with one of the entertainment law firms in New York. Luke meets Dayne Matthews when his agent brings him into Luke's office. The pictures in the office catch Dayne's attention and he can't get them or Luke out of his mind and can't figure out why. He later goes back to Luke's office and looks at the pictures. He takes the picture of Luke's parents because the woman looks so familiar, but he still can't figure out why. Dayne's adoptive parents recently died and left him a bunch of pictures and papers. He goes through them and finds adoption papers, which he didn't know about before, and a picture of Elizabeth.

He hires a private investigator, who finds out where Baxter Family lives. And also finds out that Elizabeth is in the hospital dying of cancer. Dayne makes it to the hospital just in time to meet her. She dies that same night.

After meeting Elizabeth, Dayne ends up at the Christian Kids Theater and catches the end of the production of Charlie Brown. He sees the director and can't stop thinking about her. She notices him too, and has the same reaction. The is actually where the next series starts off.

Because of her mom's health, Ashley decides to move up her wedding date by a week because it's really important to her that her mom be there. They end up getting married on July 12th.

John and Elizabeth were married August 22, 1968. They had Brooke in 1972. Then they had Kari, Ashley, and Erin, in that order. They had Luke in 1980.

I LOVED this story. I felt so sad for Elizabeth, but I'm glad everything happened when it did. She got to see all of her children get married and got to see her son she put up for adoption all those years ago. Im so glad everything worked out for Erin and Sam too. The birth parents were horrible!!! I'm so glad they ended up with 4 beautiful girls.

I have since started Fame...the first book in the next series, and can't wear to hear more about the Baxters.

I finished this on 9/12/2008