Lara is a brown-skin chocolate cutie who begins to question being different when she is taunted on the school playground. Young Lara knows she's different but can't figure out why. Her parents have light skin and loose curls while she is brown skinned with thick kinky hair.
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Lara was adopted by a pop star mom and supportive dad. They don't bother to share this information with Lara. Instead they insist that she is simply their special little girl. When Lara is eight a policeman asks her if she is lost when she is standing right next to her dad. These type of occurrences keep the little girl with questions no one will answer.
Lara learns that she is adopted from a newspaper headline. It states in bold letters that her dad went to Nigeria to get a three-year old little girl for his pop star wife Patricia “Trish” Reid.
Trish was raised in London in a family full of boys and a boy-crazy sister. Her mom depressed due to her father's running off with a neighbor, she learns to keep her feelings to herself. No one is paying her attention anyway. Her gift of singing not fully developed in part due her shyness. She is discovered by a man ten years her senior who courts her while encouraging her singing. When she makes it big the only thing missing is a baby. Her husband takes care of that with his African connections. Lara is the child they have always wanted. Trish sings for a while and then decides she really wants to be a stay at home mom.
Lara is raised with the best of everything. She's a daddy's girl, and her mom calls her “Sweet Pea.” She continues to struggle because she does not look like her parents. She will understand more of her background sooner than she thinks.
As an adult, Lara carries insecurities that no one chooses to understand. At thirty, Lara appears to have things together on the outside. She has a good job, a wonderful condo and a man who adores her. Too bad for Tyler, who is working her last nerve, without knowing why. She has never been quite comfortable enough to return Tyler's affirmations of love. Has never been quite comfortable in her own skin.
When Lara's birth mother shows up in London being thirty is reduced to three. So many questions are in Lara's head that she starts having panic attacks. She researches Nigeria on the Internet and learns that almost 550 languages are spoken. She wonders what her first words were in a tongue that is as foreign to her as the place of her birth. The woman's appearance is not welcome to Lara. She has a mother and father. She isn't ready to face her past and who she is.
Even though she remembers the playground taunts with pain, she can't push forward to receive this woman who she feels abandoned her. Yomi did abandon her child. She left her in an orphanage so that she could marry a chief who did not love her. A double dose of shame.
Lara's dad confesses to her that Yomi had sent letters over the years begging to see Lara. He didn't want to lose his daughter and therefore never responded. A determined Yomi would not be kept from the daughter she gave up thirty years earlier. She travels to London with her mother so a double shock is in store for Lara. She meets her Yomi and her Nigerian grandmother at the same time.
Painful questions are answered and Lara's heart opens to Yomi. She is hurt over her mother leaving her behind to marry for money. She is a daughter searching for her past and now her questions have at least been answered. Lara falls in love with her grandmother who is still angry at Yomi for denying her a grandchild out of selfish motivation.
Pat and Yomi come together (with some tension) and together they decide to both do their best for Lara and get along.
Lara wins an award for her work in the field of business with her entire family by her side. She is finally getting a chance to understand just who she is. There are people who love her. Two moms, two grandmother's, a great dad, and Tyler.
Best part of story, including ending:
I liked that Lara learned met her birth mom. She needed to know who she really was so that she could get over her inferiority complex. She had a rich heritage and deserved to feel good about herself.
Best scene in story:
My favorite scene is when Lara's moms are there to see her receive her business award and celebrate her accomplishments as a family.
Opinion about the main character:
I disliked that Lara was not comfortable enough to let Tyler really get close to her. She deserved love.
