April 26, 2023

Finding Everleigh:
A Novel
Donna Rodrigues
Aviva Publishing (2022)
ISBN: 978-1-63618-256-8 (hardcover)
ISBN: 978-1-63618-257-5 (paperback)
ISBN: 978-1-63618-258-2 (ebook)

New Novel Features European Odyssey That Leads to Finding Oneself

Anyone who has ever tried to find themselves will be able to relate to the title character’s predicament in Donna Rodrigues’ new novel, Finding Everleigh.

The story begins when twenty-six-year-old Everleigh, who lives in Seattle, loses her mother to cancer. In the days following the funeral, Everleigh learns more about her and her family’s past than she ever knew in all her years growing up. The handsome young family lawyer, Stan, helps Everleigh with settling her mother’s estate, and during their meeting, he gives her a letter her deceased grandmother left for her. In the letter, Everleigh finds out the truth about who her father was and that she also has a twin brother who was given up for adoption. Everleigh is astonished by what she learns, but she is also pleased to find out she does have at least one family member still alive and wants to get to know him. She goes in search of her brother while at the same time going in search of herself.

While Everleigh is cleaning out the family home, she also discovers her grandmother’s diaries and photograph albums. She learns more about her grandparents’ courtship from these albums, but even more important, she learns that her grandmother was an adventurer who took a trip to Europe on her own, visiting numerous countries in the 1950s. The diaries reveal her grandmother’s plans for the trip, all the countries she visited, and why she never completed the entire vacation she had planned.

Meanwhile, Everleigh continues to work with Stan on settling the estate, but it turns into personal meetings over coffee. Stan is thoughtful, concerned for her during this difficult time, and altogether seems like a perfect gentleman, but Everleigh has so much going on with her feelings that she isn’t sure if she is moving too fast with him.

Tired of her job, feeling somewhat lost, and also a bit confused about her growing feelings for Stan, Everleigh decides her grandmother’s diaries have revealed to her the answer she has been searching for—she needs an adventure too. Before she knows it, Everleigh is heading off to Europe to recreate her grandmother’s journey. In the process, she will not only learn more about her grandmother but also about herself.

I thoroughly enjoyed Everleigh’s story of connecting with her family’s past and how she opened herself up to adventure. As a family historian myself, I could relate to how much recreating her grandmother’s trip meant to her. As someone who loves to travel and has been to many of the countries Everleigh visits, and who wants to go to the others, I really enjoyed reading about Everleigh’s experiences. I felt for her when she got lost or had difficulties with the local languages. I could relate to all her mix of emotions as she encountered unfamiliar situations. I also enjoyed how she tried to take photographs in front of Irish churches or the Eiffel Tower that recaptured the pose and look of photos her grandmother had taken.

One of the best things about travel is it gets us away from what is familiar and gives us new opportunities to learn about other places and discover new aspects of ourselves. Everleigh definitely has that experience. She makes new friends everywhere she goes from hotel desk clerks and elderly ladies she asks for directions to young people traveling like herself. She also meets a couple of nasty people, but one particularly bad encounter allows her to understand better the difficulties her mother had once faced, helping to bring one aspect of the story full circle.

Donna Rodrigues certainly did her research and probably personally visited many of the places in the novel herself because they feel very authentic, from the overwhelming noise and traffic of Athens to the charm and friendly atmosphere of Irish pubs and the sadness of sites associated with the Holocaust.

I won’t give away the novel’s ending, but it felt very satisfying to me and helped to tie up the unresolved situations Everleigh left behind when she embarked for Europe.

Finding Everleigh is a fun, yet moving and realistic story about finding oneself, coming to terms with the past, connecting with family, and creating the future you want. It will inspire readers to have their own adventures, and it shows the possibilities that exist in the world if we are only willing to come out of our shells.

For more information about Donna Rodrigues and Finding Everleigh, visit www.FindingEverleigh.com.

— Tyler R. Tichelaar, PhD and Award-Winning Author of Narrow Lives and Spirit of the North