A review by judyward
The History of Us by Leah Stewart

3.0

Life never turns out the way we plan it and this reality slaps Eloise Hampel right in the face. Eloise has just started her dream job--teaching at Harvard University--when she gets a call that her only sister and her brother-in-law have been killed in an accident and her mother's coping skills extend only to asking the eldest child who has just lost her parents to call Eloise to come home and take over. Before she knows it, Eloise has given up her life in Boston, moved back to the large, old house in Cincinnati where she grew up, taken a job teaching at a local college, and she is raising her sister's children. Now almost twenty years later, the children, Theodora, Josh, and Claire are grown up and Eloise is at a crossroads. She is academically stagnant, she is involved in a secret relationship, and she is being drained financially by the family home that she desperately wants to sell. The same house that Theodora, Josh, and Claire call home. Leah Stewart examines the issue of what constitutes a family and how family ties are stronger than any of us realize in this engaging book.