INHERITANCE

The final chapter in Sunderland’s (Offerings, 2009, etc.) faith-based trilogy chronicles the intersecting lives of a pregnant teen, an evangelical academic and an Italian friar.

Victoria, a 17-year-old Vietnamese-American, lost out on her inheritance from her recently departed great aunt due to an abortion the younger woman had years earlier. Faced with another pregnancy, the result of a rape, Victoria wants to keep the baby—a decision that puts her at odds with her callous senator mom. Fleeing to London to escape the family drama with the help of her kindhearted father, Victoria finds refuge with Frederick and Fanny Collingwood. Frederick himself had been sheltered by the family of Victoria’s father during the Vietnam War, when Frederick was a British correspondent on the run from the Viet Cong. Meanwhile, history professor Madeleine Seymour has traveled from San Francisco to London with her husband Jack in order to establish a children’s home (and clinic with prenatal counseling). Brother Cristoforo, visiting from Rome, helps Madeleine and Jack search for property when he’s not trying to save street urchin Nadia or preaching in places such as Hyde Park, where Victoria encounters him. Soon Madeleine, whose own daughter drowned at less than a year old, is looking after Victoria as the young American falls for William, the Collingwoods’ son, who is soon to be ordained a deacon. Coincidentally, Madeleine and Jack knew Victoria’s great aunt well, though they’re not fond of her mom, so they hide Victoria from the senator when she comes to town. By the time Victoria learns that her mother (who had an abortion she regretted a couple years after Victoria was born) had lied to her about William’s pending engagement and then got Brother Cristoforo arrested, the plot has entered pure soap opera territory. While the book’s descriptions of locations are painstakingly specific, the characters are rather broad and stock. We never get the sense that these are actual flesh-and-blood people who struggle deeply with the many contradictions between moral conviction and harsh reality.

Underdeveloped characters and too much melodrama mar an otherwise promising story of love and choice.