You Were Always Mine is an intriguing story that explores the many facets of love, racism, and motherhood. A great story for book clubs.to discuss.

Cinnamon had a hard childhood. Brought up in care, she often elaborated her stories to make herself more interesting and to escape her everyday drudgery. Meeting her husband to be didn’t stop Cinnamon from telling a few fibs, and now, a few years down the line, the opportunity to come clean has passed and she has to continue with her life as it is.

Always a bit of a loner, Cinnamon meets up with a young girl in the local park. She has no idea what this odd little friendship will bring, and how it will totally upend her life as she knows it.

I really enjoyed the previous book from these authors and looked forward to reading this one. Sadly for me it didn’t quite hit the mark. Though I love its message and the relationship between Cinnamon and “Bluebell”, for me it was too slow and the ending was no great surprise. Some good characters, but just lacking the the oomph I was expecting.

A nice story, but too drawn out.

Thank you NetGalley.

What a lovely, heart-felt portrayal of love with no limits. Colour of your skin should not determine the love you feel. This author truly took this to a new level. I enjoyed reading this so much!

This is a sweet story about the choices that make a family, forgiveness and unlikely friendships that can change your life. This book is a good choice for book clubs and would lead to interesting discussions.
Cinnamon is struggling through her marriage and dealing with her childhood spent in foster care. She meets a young woman who is also lonely with a similar past. Cinnamon finds herself by taking care of an abandoned baby of a different race and providing the love and support that she missed out on in her earlier life.
I especially liked the way the authors used personal letters to the baby to carry the story along.
Thank you to HQ and NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy in exchange for an honest review.

I wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading You Were Always Mine, but the initial premise of the book seemed intriguing: a black woman finds an abandoned white baby and decides to take care of it. With a hook like that, it was pretty much guaranteed that the story would open up multiple cans of worms in the telling. And I was not disappointed.

Cinnamon Haynes is a black, married 30-something who has invested a lot in creating the kind of life she has always aspired to. Namely, she is married to Jayson, an up-and-coming entrepreneur, she has a steady job at a community college, and she lives in a nice home. For Cinnamon, who grew up in a series of foster homes (something she doesn't tell anyone, including her husband and her best friend), her current lifestyle represents the kind of stability she has always yearned for.

Or does it? Because Cinnamon's life is less straightforward than it looks. Jayson's business dealings are in a somewhat precarious state, she cannot seem to get along with her mother-in-law Abigail, and she is desperate not to ask herself the question that so many people approaching mid life do, namely "Is this it?!"

Meanwhile, 19 year old Daisy Jacobs has her own problems - one of them involving an imminent reckoning. Alone and pregnant, she must decide what to do with her newborn baby girl.

Over the last year, Daisy and Cinnamon - who met only by chance, and at first glance appear to have very little in common - have grown fond of each other after spending time together during their weekly lunches at a park.

So although Cinnamon doesn't know that Daisy is pregnant, and Daisy doesn't know that Cinnamon's facade hides the fact that she grew up in foster care, Daisy ends up leaving her baby by the park bench for Cinnamon to find when she shows up for their regular weekly meeting.

Afraid that Daisy will be punished by the authorities for abandoning her baby, Cinnamon decides to keep the baby for a few days (not forever, as Daisy requests in her note). Her plan is to find Daisy and persuade her to change her mind.

What Cinnamon doesn't realise is what she's let herself in for. Her husband Jayson flatly refuses to have anything to do with her plan, her best friend Lucia warns Cinnamon against this course of action, and Cinnamon herself finds that she is way out of her depth when it comes to looking after a newborn. And then, things come crashing down when Daisy's racist grandparents demand custody of the baby.

This was a beautiful story, with well-drawn characters who make a place for themselves in the reader's heart. There are so many things about this novel that are meaningful, it is hard to know where to begin.

We get to know Daisy through her attempts to make a new life for herself, even as she has left behind a vital piece of her heart with her baby daughter, whom Cinnamon nicknames Bluebell. The letters that Daisy begins writing to her newborn - to be shared with Bluebell someday in the distant future - are a testament to how much she has already been through in her young life.

Meanwhile, we accompany Cinnamon through the challenges of unplanned motherhood, and the similarly unplanned bond that she develops with the baby. Unsurprisingly, the experience stirs up Cinnamon's own issues of abandonment and selfworth. We also feel her pain, when societal norms and expectations in contemporary America inevitably mean that strangers not only find it offensive for a black woman to have a white child, but feel perfectly within their rights to express their outrage.

And on top of all that, Cinnamon must contend with the prospect of handing over baby Bluebell to a system that had earlier badly failed Cinnamon herself, or deal with the equally unpalatable possibility of having Bluebell raised by her profoundly racist great-grandparents, who treated her mother Daisy so badly.

The book addresses a range of themes, including racism, friendship, parenthood, emotional abuse, adoption and the failures of foster-care. But I found it an easy and utterly engrossing read, because it is easy to feel invested in these characters. Not only the protagonists, Cinnamon and Daisy, but also the supporting characters who make up their friends and family members.

This is a deeply moving book, and ultimately, Cinnamon and Daisy's stories are both about moving from survival to friendship, experiencing love in its many forms, and perhaps most importantly, understanding the true meaning of family.

Currently off to a slow start with getting connected to the story and DNF. Will attempt to revisit at a later date and provide a more fair review of the entire work.

Cinnamon and Daisy didn’t expect to be friends when they met on that bench in the park over a year ago, but now their weekly lunch is one of the only things keeping them going.

They’ve both struggled, faced the most difficult things life could throw at them — and still aren’t really sure where they’re going next. But at just nineteen, Daisy finds herself pregnant and alone and knows this is more than she can handle — and there’s only one person she knows who she’d trust to care for her beautiful daughter.

So now Cinnamon finds herself with a baby - nobody, not even her husband can understand why a 35 year old black woman can take this tiny blonde, blue eyed baby who isn’t even hers, but she knows she will do anything to protect her, to protect her and the new life she’s found — even if means giving up everything she had before.

"This is your lowest point. And there was something freeing about that, just letting myself sink to rock bottom, no where lower to go."

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again — anything this duo puts out is the perfect pick for a book club because they not only bring an amazing story but there is always so much to talk about and think about.

Pride and Piazza both bring their unique voice and flair to create a powerful, searing story that intersectionally explores race, identity, class, generational trauma, family and love all while telling an explosively intense and entertaining story. They do not shy away from honestly and boldly talking about difficult subjects that affect people but always do it tenderly and with Grace. Their poignant look at womanhood and the maternal relationships we have was absolutely stunning, a moving look at not only the hardships of being a woman in a world not made for them but the beauty of it too.

Cinnamon and Daisy were both beautiful characters — I felt such a deep connection with them both on different levels. Both women have different backgrounds, different lives but are joined together by a sisterhood, a human connection that defies any social divides in the most spectacular ways. Neither of them are perfect people, they make awful choices and act harshly but even at their most distant, I couldn’t help hope for both of them to find peace and happiness.

This story moves slowly, full of scenes of domesticity , but not the blissful kind. We hear from Cinnamon and Daisy, their voices clear and distinct — giving us little observations, memories and thoughts to really let us inside their head, moving between personal realistic narratives and lyrically poetic prose fluidly. The characters and their own personal journeys were the driving force behind this story. Their emotions kept it moving; frustration, desperation, love, desire. Of course we can kind of see where this is going in some ways — but it’s not a mystery novel. We anxiously watch and wait as our characters to put together the pieces of this story and guess where it might go, it isn’t a mystery — but we get to watch as our characters try to fit the pieces together themselves themselves and we wait anxiously, hoping for it to work out and see how this pivotal series of events and people changes their lives. It really made me stop and think about all the little parts that make up a person and create their senses of self, and all the different things a family can be.

A striking story from two powerhouse voices that will ask you one question that seems simple but isn’t — what really makes you belong? It can be summed up by our own Cinnamon “She can’t tell if any of that is sweet or sad, but that the case with so much, isn’t it? A murky mix of the two."

You Were Always Mine is an engaging novel that explores the inequalities between races and what it would look like if a white baby was abandoned and left to be raised by a black woman.

I enjoyed reading how it would all play out and I'm glad the authors didn't tie it all up nicely as you could see the cracks in Cinnamon's marriage before this baby became even more of a strain. The ending was very fitting.

Cinnamon Haynes is a Black woman who finds an abandoned white baby in a park one day during her lunch break. However, this is no random act; the baby was left there for Cinnamon to find, and she eventually makes the decision to raise the baby. This book tells the story of the unconventional relationship between Cinnamon and the baby's mother, Daisy, and the many hardships that led them to the predicament in which they find themselves.

Things I really liked:
- Cinnamon and Daisy had terrible childhoods but were still good people
- the character development/growth we see in Cinnamon
- Cinnamon's friendship with Lucia... the support, understanding, and vulnerability
- the smaller characters like Reverend Rick and Abigail
- the well-deserved happy ending!

Although the book may be a bit more wishful thinking than reality, it was told well and I really enjoyed it. The story was unique, kept me engaged, and the resolution was beautiful and satisfying.

Thank you to HQ and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this e-ARC. I am leaving this review voluntarily.

This is my second novel from this pair and, much like the first, they take a contemporary, serious issue and throw you right in the middle of it, pulling you back and forth.

Highly recommended

This book from the start brings in all the emotions, I couldn’t put it down, the way the story is portrayed is magnificent! Would definitely recommend

Oh my goodness, this book wasn’t what I was expecting, but it was so much deeper than that. I absolutely loved it.

Yes, yes, yes! This book is a must read! Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC for the purpose of this review. I'm giving it five stars all the way.

Pride and Piazza are a writing force. They develop rich characters that you become invested in. I'm always a fan of books and stories about birth moms, adoptive moms and the like. This was a very unique story and it had me hooked from the beginning.