Mona

JB Harris' Second Novel

STILL ALICE meets OLIVE KITTTRIDGE

Told in dual POV, THE FAMILY WE CHOOSE (working title) is an 82,000 word work of women’s fiction inspired by my father’s Alzheimer’s and the question: who helps the familyless?

An ambitious young caseworker is assigned a no-nonsense spinster with Alzheimer’s who refuses to accept help for fear of being institutionalized, but when the caseworker learns the octogenarian is a victim of eugenics she must decide whether to protect her career or her client. 

Julie is a social worker with aspirations for her own psychiatric practice and a detailed life plan to get there, but a fight with her boyfriend, a one-night stand, and an unwanted pregnancy completely derail everything. Julie’s struggle to repair her life coincides with her fight to help her new client Miss Clara whose only aid comes from Lynn,the formerly absent daughter of a deceased friend who expects to inherit. When the old woman’s memory deteriorates to the point where she wallpapers her home with post it reminders, Julie must defy her boss and swallow her pride to disentangle Clara from Lynn, while keeping her in her own home and out of the very system that caused Miss Clara’s childlessness in the first place.

THE FAMILY WE CHOOSE explores what it means to be family and the choices we make to protect the ones we love.