Could you take a foster child into your home, hope to adopt her, and then have to give him back?
Many readers have asked, over the years, where I get the ideas for the characters in my books. Sometimes I’m sparked by a name, but most often, I begin with something factual in either my law practice or personal life.
Recently, while plotting Hunted By Proxy, the second novel in the Proxy Legal Thriller Series, I had an opportunity to write about my former assistant, Jess. In the book, she and her husband are called Jess and Kevin Matherly—not their real names. The fictional couple temporarily foster a young girl, Lily Collins, who was injured and lost her mother in a severe automobile accident. It is an important plot line in the story when Quinton Bell, an attorney and the primary character in the series, takes on Lily’s case.
What spurred me to write about Jess and Kevin is the fact that my former assistant and her husband engaged in real life fostering. They had taken in three children at the time of the writing of the book, one baby boy they adopted, one toddler boy they were hoping to adopt and a newborn little girl who was temporarily placed with them. Later, they did adopt the toddler, and also adopted the girl when the real mother, a drug addict, was proven unfit in court, to resume her parenting duties.
I’ve always been fascinated by the dynamics within families, especially those who choose to welcome children into their homes through fostering with no guarantee of adoption. In the end, judges must weigh how long a child has been with their foster family, and the damage it may cause the child to be taken from them, against the rights of the real parents. It’s a heartbreaking decision with the child’s best interest front and center.
When I asked the “Real Jess” how she dealt with having a child go back, she said, “It’s the bargain we make.” It’s obvious that the Matherlys would rather help a child without guarantee than leave a child homeless because risk is involved. Also, they cheer when a parent straightens out their life and can have their offspring returned.
When writing the Matherly’s into the story in Hunted By Proxy, I devised Jess and Kevin as foster parents for trauma victims who did not intend to adopt. I tried to capture the compassion and emotional complexity that foster families face, as well as the legal and emotional entanglements that come with it. Writing about this gave me a chance to weave in some of the very real struggles that people in these situations face every day, and how they are champions for the children they foster.
Of course, in true thriller fashion, the stakes in Hunted By Proxy go far afield of family drama, spilling into darker territory—betrayal, deception, and even murder. But at the heart of it all, it’s about people making difficult choices in impossible situations. I hope readers feel the emotional weight of Lily’s, Jess’s and Kevin’s journey while also getting caught up in the twists and turns of the drama.
If you haven’t had an opportunity to read Hunted By Proxy, check it out here.
Happy Reading,
Manning
