Mockingbird

The cry of an abandoned baby on the outskirts of an old Cuban town attracts the attention—and then cracks open the life—of a wandering tourist. Mia, an out-of-work actress whose life is adrift, finds herself filled with purpose as she looks for a place the baby can call home.

As with any odyssey, the way home is filled with twists and turns. The baby comes down with an infection, for which medicine is unavailable. Mia’s self-absorbed boyfriend threatens to derail all her well-intentioned efforts. A local musician proves helpful to Mia, though his help comes tangled up with desire. An approaching hurricane further complicates matters. As she falls more deeply in love with the baby, Mia makes increasingly drastic choices. Her fluency as an actress allows her to play a real life high-stakes role: she finds herself committing crimes for the sake of the child. As she says, “Legal and moral are hardly the same.”

Julie Trimingham of Bellingham, WA

Julie Trimingham lives on an island in the Salish Sea in the Pacific Northwest. She is a the director of several acclaimed films. Mockingbird is her first novel.