The History of Us / Leah Stewart / 367 pages

Eloise Hempel's dreams have been realized.  She is a professor at Harvard...until she receives the phone call from her niece informing her that her sister Rachel and her husband were killed in a tour helicopter crash in Hawaii.  Eloise gives up her job to return to Cincinnati to become surrogate mother to her sisters three children.  Nearly two decades later, Eloise and the kids are still living in her mother's century old house and Eloise believes her life can finally resume.  As she attempts to push her children from the nest, her mother's conditions regarding ownership of the home nearly fractures the fragile family.  This is moving story of the tie that binds - family