Showing results by author "Kay Bratt" in All Categories

In the fourth book of the Tales of the Scavenger's Daughters series, the fates of three people who've never met converge in profound and unexpected ways.

When her family relocated to rural China in 2003, Kay Bratt was thrust into a new world, one where boys were considered more valuable than girls and poverty and the one-child policy had created an epidemic of abandoned infants. As a volunteer at a local orphanage, Bratt witnessed conditions that were unfathomable to a middle-class mother of two from South Carolina. Based on Bratt’s diary of her four years at the orphanage, Silent Tears offers a searing account of young lives rendered disposable.

When Sadie Harlan visits her daughter, Lauren, at her summer internship in Yosemite National Park, it seems like the perfect way to forget about her empty nest and failing marriage back home. But when the two women get lost on what’s meant to be a short hike, they suddenly find themselves fighting for their lives. As they search for food, water, and civilization, they battle injury, exhaustion, and natural predators. Sadie, however, is assaulted by more than just the unforgiving elements.

Even after a decade of pain, Ivy remains closely tethered to Lily - her blind twin sister - and haunted by her mother’s admission the night their home burned, almost taking Lily’s life: “I’m sorry. Take care of your sister.” Years later, as Lily begins to navigate the world on her own, the police mistakenly toss the blind girl in a cell, and Ivy realizes she must find her twin at all costs…even if that means risking her own freedom.

The pain of China’s Cultural Revolution well behind them, Benfu and his treasured Calla Lily are content in their old age surrounded by their family of adopted daughters. Once abandoned, the girls are now cherished members of the Zheng family. Yet there remains an emptiness in their hearts: their only biological daughter, Dahlia, was abducted as a newborn 30 years before. When their daughter Linnea discovers an unexpected clue about what really happened to Dahlia, the elderly couple’s hopes are reignited.

Many believe that those who are destined to be together are connected by an invisible red thread. If that is so, the fates of Chai and Josi are weaved together and tied with a knot that cannot be broken. Chai has been the self-appointed protector of her best friend, Josi, since their toddler days. Their lives are as far from extravagant as can be imagined - but they don’t need material things to be content.