Finish Time: 3 nights. Talk about a page-turner. I was up late 3 nights to finish this book! It tackles a very current topic – In-vitro Fertilization (IVF), and even takes it a step further. It makes you think – what if you found out you weren’t who you’ve always thought (been told) you were? Would it matter? Does it change anything? Would you seek out your genetic connection?Selene Mannon has to answer all of those questions. I go back and forth on whether I agree with her choices, but either way it is all explained and she is a great main character. The book begins with her mother on her death-bed admitting that Selene was conceived through IVF with a donor egg. Now with both her mother and father gone, she moves to New York City with her aunt and uncle and begins the search to find her genetic mother.With the help of her aunt Lila, a pediatrician Deandra, and a private investigator, Max, Selene begins to not only investigate her background, but a string of children with missing records, common ailments, and one doctor in common. The book explores many different relationships, many people who were forced to conceal the truth, or chose to for various reasons. And a really unbelievable scheme in the end. I’ll say it again, un-be-lieve-able as I struggle with wrapping my head around it, or even doing a Google search about it. It’s a bit disturbing too but the build up is so good, thus my good rating.It’s a fictional book, obviously based on something that could happen (at least the beginning part of it), so we’ll leave it at that. As I mentioned before, a page-turner of the true definition. A fast read with vibrant characters, glad I had the chance to preview!
(Review by My Dog-Eared Purpose)
21 Stars to this novel, tremendously riveting from first page to left, utterly unstoppable with tension, mystery, suspense, passion, friendship, and romance; plus fanaticism and emotional pain, fear and hatred, and self-righteousness to the max. Unforgettable.
(Review by Mallory Heart Reviews)
Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Full Text: Progeny is Anita Bihovsky's first book. And let me just say, WOW!!! This book was something and a half to say the least. For someone like me who dealt with paternity issues, I'm glad in the end that mine weren't anything like this book's issues.
I highly want to recommend this book. It will keep you on the edge of your seat the whole way through. You know something big has taken place. But you won't truly know what that something is until the very end. And then you are like WHAT! You never expect what is coming at all.
Selene Mannon thought she knew who she was and where she came from her whole life. But when her mother Gloria dies, she finds out that everything she thought she knew was an absolute lie. Her mother is her mother in the technical sense that she gave birth to her. But it wasn't her mother's egg that made that possible. Her mom underwent IVF in order to have her. Selene does have her father's DNA, but who the mother of the egg is no one knows. Selene feels like her mother should have told her about this before she died instead of leaving a letter behind for her to read after she passed.
With the help of her Aunt Lila Phillips, Selene ventures out to find who her real mother is. What she doesn't know is that there is a lot of mystery revolving around her existence. Things that Dr. Mayer, one of the men behind her existence, will do anything to keep quite. Things that could very well cost Selene the life she is trying to figure out.
I promise you, if you want an edge of your seat mystery. This is the one for you. You seriously will be glad you read it!
(Review by The Little Reading Cabin)
Vivid, well-paced writing and build-up of tension wich make this very topical novel a page-turner.
(Angela Neustatter, author and journalist)
When an online friend of mine who also is an avid book worm [Sophie Harris] read this book and rated it, I knew it was something that I could get my teeth into.
I wasn't wrong.
This truly is a page turner. I don't think any reviewer/reader could do a write up on the lovely story without giving it away, so I'm going to try my best not to do this.
Selene is now 20 years old, and sitting beside her Mother's deathbed she is told by her Mother's dying breath that although she is her Mother in most senses of the word, but not her biological one.
Now, before you think its a cut and dried case and she goes off searching for her biological Mom, you couldn't be farther from the truth as to where this would lead and what it would uncover.......that's all I am saying!
When I read that this is Anita Bihovsky's FIRST book, I was what? WHAT!, surely not, she is an expert writer, expert author, expert story teller. I would certainly not have thought this was her first written work.
To use the old reviewers Cliché....it was a page turner, I couldn't put it down, it kept me up reading all night.....this was fab, this was good, this was.....
You get the picture?! well, it was all of those Clichés and MORE.
If you don't read anything else this year.......read this one.
(Review by Read Along with Sue)
June 26 at Main Point Books
Several years ago, Anita Bihovsky was having breakfast and reading the newspaper when a small item caught her eye. It told of a strange medical experiment that seemed too bizarre to believe. She went straight to her computer and began outlining a story for her first novel.
"I'd always planned to be fiction writer," notes Bihovsky, a Wynnewood resident who works as a communications consultant and book publicist. "When I finished writing the book, I sent it to numerous publishers and agents. The agent I hired wasn't much help. So eventually I put the manuscript away until my son Michael, who's a writer and composer, asked to read it. With his encouragement I updated and revised it, and went the self-publishing route."
The book, a mystery titled Progeny, is about a young woman who learns that her dying mother isn't her biological parent. Grieving and confused, she sets out to discover the identity of her real mother, only to discover that the question isn't as simple as it seems. Curiously missing medical files kick off a mystery layered in deceit. She soon crosses paths with a pediatrician seeking the same files. Aided by a private investigator, they work together to unearth a past that others are determined to keep buried at all costs. But just when it looks like they've gotten to the bottom of things, the biggest shock of all still awaits.
"In addition to the mystery element, the book also explores the impact of donor-conceived in vitro fertilization and resulting identity issues, as well as other topical themes. And it contains an astonishing twist that I'm pretty sure no one could possibly guess!" adds the author.
Bihovsky invites the public to her book launch party on Thursday, June 26, 7:00 p.m. at Main Point Books, 1041 W. Lancaster Ave., Bryn Mawr. The event will include a short reading from Progeny, a book signing, and free refreshments. The book is also available on Amazon; for more information, see www.anitabihovsky.com.
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