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Chasing Strays: A Novel
In a game of relative morality, are all truths worth speaking?
Cari Berchell was always searching for something better. Coming from a family steeped in crippling dysfunction and poverty, she assumed she had hit life's lottery when she met ranching heir Ben Berchell and became pregnant with his child. She never imagined the price she would pay for her new lot in life, including suffering the effects of Ben's alcoholism and the ensuing infidelity that came with it.
Amid those long-standing rumors of her father's youthful drunken exploits, Cari's adult daughter Abby submits her DNA for analysis and finds Sarah, a biological half-sibling that she long suspected was out there. Having lost both of her adoptive parents, Sarah is eager to bond with her newfound family; meanwhile, Abby feels the added pressure of introducing Sarah to their father Ben before he dies of his self-inflicted disease while also negotiating the new relationship with her controlling and protective mother.
After Ben’s death, Cari wants nothing more to do with Sarah until a pivotal figure from both of their pasts reemerges. Cari begins to lose control of the narrative of her manufactured life when secrets about Sarah’s birth mother threaten to expose her past.
At Abby’s urging, Cari begins piecing together her relationship with Sarah, but their shared connection has his own dark secret that has already changed the trajectory of Sarah’s life once. Can he keep another one to preserve Sarah’s peace and Cari’s dignity?
Cari Berchell was always searching for something better. Coming from a family steeped in crippling dysfunction and poverty, she assumed she had hit life's lottery when she met ranching heir Ben Berchell and became pregnant with his child. She never imagined the price she would pay for her new lot in life, including suffering the effects of Ben's alcoholism and the ensuing infidelity that came with it.
Amid those long-standing rumors of her father's youthful drunken exploits, Cari's adult daughter Abby submits her DNA for analysis and finds Sarah, a biological half-sibling that she long suspected was out there. Having lost both of her adoptive parents, Sarah is eager to bond with her newfound family; meanwhile, Abby feels the added pressure of introducing Sarah to their father Ben before he dies of his self-inflicted disease while also negotiating the new relationship with her controlling and protective mother.
After Ben’s death, Cari wants nothing more to do with Sarah until a pivotal figure from both of their pasts reemerges. Cari begins to lose control of the narrative of her manufactured life when secrets about Sarah’s birth mother threaten to expose her past.
At Abby’s urging, Cari begins piecing together her relationship with Sarah, but their shared connection has his own dark secret that has already changed the trajectory of Sarah’s life once. Can he keep another one to preserve Sarah’s peace and Cari’s dignity?
339 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 11, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
August 26, 2026
Full disclosure: the author is a friend of mine, so I may be a little biased! 😉 But that doesn’t take away from how much I genuinely enjoyed reading it, and I especially loved the way everything played out in the end.
October 10, 2026
This was actually quite a good novel. I'm glad I found it
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews