"My Secret Sister" by Helen Edwards and Jenny Lee Smith

   I bought this book a couple of years ago, because it was "Heather's Pick" at Chapters book store.  I thought that I would enjoy this biography because I lean towards books about women surmounting difficult situations.  And there are great challenges in this book.
   However, I kept avoiding it because of the cover.  Actually, the cover does reflect the heart of the story.  So, why did I keep avoiding it?  I cannot answer that.   
  The information under the title tells the story- "Twins separated at birth.  One sister abused, one loved. A powerful true story".
   Helen and Jenny Lee were born in England in 1948.
I believe that the mother, who gave away one twin and kept the other was not mentally stable.  She married a man with uncontrollable anger.  He was abusive to both the mother and her daughter, Helen.  Helen grew up with an adored older brother who tried to protect her.  But she did not know about other siblings.
   Jenny Lee was adopted and believed that her adoptive parents were her birth parents.  She knew nothing about siblings.  Her father died when she was 12 and she discovered her adoption a few years later.  At that point, she became determined to search out her birth family. Twice her biological mother, Mercia, refused to see her.  But one day she arrived at Mercia's door with her husband and three children so Mercia let her in. That was the only time she saw her biological mother.

Jenny and Helen in 2012

  Then, in 2001, Jenny Lee began a successful search for her twin sister, Helen, and the two have been inseparable ever since.
 Together they searched out all the convoluted details of their family, found another sister who did not want contact, discovered who the father was for each child, and pieced together Mercia's distorted life.

Update on the twins:
Helen became a nurse, then trained as a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist.  She is now retired, has a husband and two children.
Jenny Lee was a professional golfer in Europe.  She has a husband and three children and breeds dogs.

   This book is very well written, alternating between Helen and Jenny Lee.  I wondered at the consistency of the writing, but then I discovered the secret on the title page- a ghost writer (Jacqui Buttriss).  A most interesting biography.