Having a child kidnapped is every parent’s nightmare.  I knew that for some, reading this story would feel like walking through an emotional mine field.  Once, when my family was at Mardi Gras in New Orleans, I lost sight of one of my daughters who was, at the time, about eleven years old.  It was a frightening twenty minutes before we found her caught up in the fun of watching the parade and catching beads.  Another time, when we’d recently made a long-distance move from New Orleans to Boston, Massachusetts and that same daughter, who never met a stranger, came up missing again.  She was six years old and had been invited into a stranger’s house to “get acquainted.”  After three frantic hours, we found her.  So, I felt I knew in some small measure how a mother might react when facing the horror of a kidnapping. 

When thinking of other elements of this story, I came up with the plot twist of Melanie’s pregnancy to replace the baby.  I knew then I really wanted to write the book.  It would be a challenge to portray the psychological effect upon a family when a child is kidnapped.  How would the marriage fare?  What about the remaining children?  How would each family member cope?  What ways would they seek out simply to survive?  My heroine throws herself into an organization where she meets with and counsels other parents who have lost a child.  Child Search is a fictitious organization, but its mission is similar to the National Organization for Missing and Exploited Children.  Their assistance and help to desperate parents is invaluable.