Mix-up and family drama

The Missing Years

Author: Claudette Beckford Brady

Publisher: Vanguard Press (245pages)

Reviewer: Siobhan Morrison

Smart, refreshing, romantic and moving are just some of the ways to describe author Claudette Beckford Brady's newest novel, The Missing Years.

The award-winning short-story writer successfully launched her first novel Sweet Home: Jamaica in 2007 (Vanguard Press). The Missing Years is the sequel. The book reacquaints readers with protagonist Michelle Freeman-Armstrong, the smart, savvy and fiery businesswoman whose journey to connect with her maternal family and, in turn, her cultural heritage, forms the basis of the story in the first novel. In The Missing Years, the focus of the story is essentially on Michelle and her marriage to businessman Richard Armstrong, and her tentative relationship with her long-lost mother Delisia.

If you have not yet read Sweet Home: Jamaica then you need to do so to fully appreciate The Missing Years. To summarise, in Sweet Home Jamaica, 14-year-old Michelle discovers the secret surrounding her birth. The only mother she has ever known turns out not to be her biological mother. Michelle's search for her birth mother, Delisia Campbell, leads her to Jamaica and a large extended family, the Campbells.

As an adult, she leaves Brixton, England, where she had migrated as a child with her parents and sibling, and returns to Jamaica. In addition to establishing a thriving business - a small newspaper - she meets and marries the love of her life, Richard Armstrong, a farmer and businessman. The book ends when Michelle, now a mother herself, accidentally meets Delisia and the two are acrimoniously united.

The Missing Years begins only months after that first tense meeting between mother and daughter. While Michelle is still not ready to welcome her mother into her life, she tries to put up a good front for her maternal grandmother, to whom she has become very close. Emotions are high as the family members on both sides of Michelle's line gather for the annual Campbell reunion. The event marks Delisia's return to the family fold after more than 20 years.

The reunion ends with a robbery and the fatal shooting of a young boy. It is at this point that things get turned upside down and the plot takes an interesting twist. Michelle's marriage is thrown into the spotlight as her devoted husband begins to act strangely. His sudden change in demeanour, secretive activities and his growing closeness to Delisia - who is only seven years his senior - begins to alarm Michelle. The relationship between mother and daughter become even more tense.

There is a little bit of something for everyone to enjoy in the story. There are romantic entanglements, not just between Michelle and Richard, but between Delisia and Mr Armstrong Sr.and other members of the immediate family, giving credit to the old Jamaican saying - "Cousin and Cousin boil good soup".

There is a lot of drama and danger, and some humour thrown in. I thought it funny how Michelle tried to figure out how she could become "her own grandmother". The protagonist's love and fascination with the island and its history is also a key element, as although the story is set in St Catherine, the plot takes you on a journey across the island and its cultural history - it's almost as if Jamaica was another character in the book. But for me, the real driving force behind the story is the complexity of the characters.The three main characters, Michelle, Richard and Delisia are strong individuals. Their personalities and positions in society and their success in their respective fields command respect, even among their family. But Brady allows them moments of vulnerability and grief that make them likeable. I particularly like the final scene between mother and daughter, which lends the book its name, as Delisia shares the events leading up to Michelle's birth, their separation and her struggle during her absence from her family. It is sure to tug on a few hearts.