Normally I really enjoy family sagas, but this one bounced around too much - in time and location. I had difficulty figuring out the plot timeline. Sorry.

In the shadow of 10000 Hills by Jennifer Haupt

This powerful story set after the genocide of Tutsis by Hutus in Rwanda When an estimated 500,000 to 1,000,000 Rwandans were killed during the 100-day period from 7 April to mid-July 1994, constituting as many as 70% of the Tutsi population.

Whilst not directly about that awful time, all of the main characters are impacted by it. This is a story about belonging and loss, abandonment , about parenthood in all it’s guises both biological and the care that can be elicited by those who take on the mantle quietly.

I found the juxtaposition of the lives of two of the characters across two fixed points in History a wonderful device to examine the tenacity and resilience of love and how sometimes to part can be an act of love in itself.

I enjoyed the book immensely it was historically dense and deeply emotionally engaging, everyone has secrets or something they seek and brought together on the red earth of Rwanda all the pieces begin to tessellate into a shape none of them expected. I highly recommend.

The backdrop to the story is the post-genocide atrocities in Rwanda when in 1994 the Hutu-led government and militia committed such unspeakable, inhuman acts of barbarism against the Tutsi population. “There are no devils left in hell … they’re all in Rwanda” – stated a famous quote at the time. Lest we forget!

This is a wonderful novel written with a composure and care that deals with those very sensitive issues. While not allowing them to dominate the storyline it pays homage and recognition as appropriate. In dealing with racial, tribal and cultural divides, and their most horrible manifestations, the narrative is always conscious of the pace and intrigue that is necessary to keep a reader hooked on a story.

This is a novel that essentially deals with broken families and the search for answers. The catalyst for the broken families is Henry Shephard, photographer, husband and father to Merilee and Rachel, who leaves his family in 1974 in search of Lillian a black activist in the US now moved to Rwanda. There he establishes another family with Lillian and a number of adopted orphaned children. Rachel Shepherd while dealing with her own losses and demons, is in search of her father and arrives in Rwanda in 2000, knowing he has abandoned this family as well.

It would be easy to dislike Henry and the broken families he left behind, but I couldn’t completely do so. Was he always torn between different loves in his life? Did he face fierce internal emotional struggles with what his heart wanted and what he was duty bound to deliver? Did his experience of the genocide, affect his emotional stability? None of us is perfect and Jennifer Haupt has developed such wonderful multi-faceted characters that you’re never quite sure if you’re going to see the best or worst of them. The relationships and interactions between the characters are often amplified through simple gestures, a look, a stare or the touch of a hand.

This book just has everything for me, a great story, characters that grow organically and don’t feel manufactured, and the real sense of impact being set in post-genocide Rwanda. This is now one of my top 10 favourite books.

Many thanks to Central Avenue Publishing and NetGalley for an ARC version of the book in return for an honest review.

Thank you net galley and the publisher for sending this to me for an honest review
I really got into the beginning half of this book. Then admittedly I did skim a couple of chapters before the end of the book The subject matter of this novel is extremely harrowing. and it does of course lead to a very bleak read and depressing read.
I understand that the author did many years of research before putting pen to paper and that certainly comes across as you turn the pages

3 out of 5 stars

4.5 Stars

"Here's a bit of wisdom from your old man: It's the search that really matters, the adventure of living your life."

Rachel Shepherd has been thinking about her father who abandoned her as a small child. Her Mother has recently passed away and Rachel is dealing with loss and heartbreak. She yearns to connect to her father and learn why he left her all those years ago. She would also like to find him in hopes of reconnecting with him. When Rachel finds a link to her father online, she begins to send emails to Lillian Carlson, whom her father photographed years ago. She hopes that Lilian will answer her emails and provide her with some insight.

Lilian was a teenager when she was photographed by Rachel's father Henry. She and Henry shared a romance before he left her, and she moved on with her life, finding love and loss along the way. Lilian decided to leave Atlanta in 1968 after the assassination of Martin Luther King. She still wants to change the world and decides she will do so by moving to Africa and helping orphans in Rwanda. There she eventually resumes her relationship with Henry Shepherd and they live in happiness until once again he leaves.

Believing she has been invited to Rwanda, Rachel makes the journey only to learn that Lilian is not expecting her and is somewhat uncooperative to talk to her in detail about her father. Learning that her father has disappeared again, Rachel goes on a quest to find answers, but comes up with more questions.

Rachel and Lilian are not the only characters in this book dealing with loss. Tucker has lost a woman he loves and the support of his family. Nadine, in two minutes time, has lost everything. The effects of the Rwandan genocide are shown in this book. Violence, mutilation, rape, are shown and how survivors such as Nadine are scarred for life but still find a way to keep living.

"It is not so easy to judge the ones you love."

Rachel, Lilian and Nadine are all tied to Henry Shepherd, who has become a famous photographer and, in the process, become tied to each other. In one way or another he has left all three of these women but for different reasons. Through him, or perhaps because of him, the women slowly form a bond and begin to open up to each other and each gets answers. Will the answers be the ones they are looking for?

This is a powerful and moving book about love, loss, grief, abandonment, starting over, finding your true calling, the effects of violence, fear, vengeance, secrets, and what makes a family. This book goes back and forth through time from the 1960's Civil Rights movement in Atlanta to the Rwandan Genocide in the 1990's. Lilian and Henry are the characters who experienced both events, but their experiences have shaped not only their lives, but their relationships, and their careers. How does experiencing violence shape one's life? How does abandonment? How does love?

This book is extremely well written, and the descriptions are detailed. I imagine this book will be very popular with book clubs and for good reason. There is a lot to talk about here! This is not a page turner in the edge-of-your-seat-suspense sense but in the I-want-to-know-what-happened-sense. I enjoyed how nothing felt rushed or drawn out in this book. I felt the pacing was spot on and the characters and the readers gain insight and answers at the right spots in the story. I especially enjoyed how the "secrets" or "reveal" are shown naturally though the story. What really happened that fateful night? Where has Henry gone and why? Will Rachel ever learn the truth? What secrets does Lilian hold? Will the characters find amarhoro (peace) upon learning the truth?

I love when books evoke emotion, educate and captivate me all at the same time. This book did all three! I highly recommend!

Thank you to Jennifer Haupt, Central Avenue Publishing and NetGalley who provided me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

5 stars for this debut novel by Jennifer Haupt.

In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills is a moving and beautiful book. Initially, I wasn't sure about reading a novel about the Rwandan genocide of the 1990s but it is written with sensitivity and care and I feel grateful to have read it. The writer examines several large issues in this wide-ranging novel, including the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, miscarriage and loss as well as the genocide in Rwanda. It is a compelling read because of the author's treatment of these issues but also because of the book's strong, well-drawn characters.

The novel revolves around three women, Lillian, Rachel and Nadine. Lillian was involved in the Civil Rights Movement until the assassination of Martin Luther King, after which she moved to Kenya then Rwanda to care for orphans. Rachel is a 30-something New Yorker - the death of her mother then her unborn child prompts her to search for Henry, her father who left when she was eight. This search takes her to Kwizera (pronounced Kwee-zair-ah, which means hope in the Kinyarwanda language). This is Lillian's farm outside Mubaro in Rwanda, where Rachel meets Nadine, a young woman who is as a daughter to Lillian, and who saw Henry as a father figure. Nadine was only thirteen when Hutus started slaughtering the country's Tutsi population and she was subjected to a terrible ordeal which the reader learns about gradually.

Rwanda in 1994 was a place of horror and terror and Haupt does not shy from showing this, but she also conveys the strength of goodness, the power of hope and the drive for peace. Communities gather together, Lillian gathers orphans as beloved children, widows work together and support one another. Doctors, like Tucker, go to great lengths to care for the vulnerable and isolated. And the gacaca trials, some six years after the genocide, are, we are told, about reconciliation and forgiveness as much as about justice.

Haupt probes delicately as to whether this is enough for the surviving Tutsi population, and how some of the Hutus might react to these trials. She examines how a country learns to live with its past, collectively and individually. Faith is put under the microscope - the book title relates to this, as God is said to live in the 10,000 hills of Rwanda but to have been asleep or lost, blinded by tears, when the genocide took place. We are shown how massacres took place in churches where Tutsis sought refuge during the genocide but afterwards these church congregations consist of both Hutus and Tutsis: I find it incredibly hard to imagine going to church alongside people who may have been involved in killing neighbours' families.

In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills is, then, an important novel that deals with hate and slaughter but it is also filled with love, compassion, healing and the search for amahoro (peace). Haupt has written a book of  luminous beauty. Highly recommended.

 I received this ebook free from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Oh, I loved this one! It had a lot going on but it was very well done. The storytelling is really superb.

Rachel decides to search her father, Henry Shepard, who abandoned her and her mother 25 years earlier. She travels to Africa after contacting Lillian, a woman from Henry’s past. Lillian runs an orphanage in Rwanda, an orphanage that Henry helped her build and support before leaving right after the genocide. Nadine is a survivor of the genocide attending college in Nairobi, trying to get on with her life and have some kind of future. Henry Shepard saved her life and she was raised by Lillian after her parents were killed in the genocide. Tucker is a doctor from California doing his part to help the people of Rwanda before and after the genocide. He is trying to raise his adopted daughter Rose, who is HIV positive, with Lillian’s help. Like I said … A LOT going on but it’s all good. I felt invested in all of these characters and found myself sympathetic to all of their plights.

This book is not about the Rwandan Genocide though it is a significant part of every character’s story. There is enough of mention of the genocide to give the reader a snapshot of the horror. Survivors had to learn to live again in the aftermath of this tragedy. Communities had to find a way to live together peacefully again. This book is about grief, forgiveness, and reconciliation but mostly it’s about finding peace.
I thank NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

This book took a while to grab hold of me but once it did I was impressed. The build up of tension and emotion came to a powerful conclusion that was really satisfying .... and a worthwhile pay-off for the parts of the novel that sagged a little. I loved that the characters were able to negotiate a kind of peace for themselves, reconciling the pain and horror of the past without diminishing its profundity. And though the narrative would've been complete without it, I loved the little summary of the characters outcomes and a glance into their futures.

4.5 Stars

”’You must tell, so that justice can be served. It’s your responsibility.’ No she will not tell anyone about the massacre at the church that they called the Hutu glory. She will not remember, at least not during the daylight. But late at night when she becomes so tired that it is impossible to stay awake even with the Internet, that’s when the punishment begins all over again. There is no controlling what comes to her in dreams.”

The stories of three women, Rachel, Lillian, and Nadine, are woven together with the story of Henry and Tucker, and the genocide of over 800,000 people in 1994, slightly more than 23 years ago. The majority of those murdered were Tutsi. Men. Women. Children. The massacre lasted 100 days.
It’s hard to believe this happened ever, harder still to comprehend how recently this occurred, knowing that the rest of the world stood by silently.

Lillian’s story begins when she decides to leave Atlanta following the assassination of Martin Luther King, 1968. She settles in the area, working as a teacher, at first, and then later she devotes herself to the orphaned children of Africa, creating her own small orphanage, caring for herself by caring for these children too young to care for themselves. She came here looking for a life of peaceful meaning, and with this she feels she is fulfilling those dreams.

Rachel’s story begins as she faces a personal test of faith, herself, and decides she will never fully understand the world, her life, until she can find her father, Henry Shepherd. A photographer who gained some degree of fame during the years before the massacre, who had left to capture images globally, but made another home, as well, in Rwanda. And so Rachel leaves New York and heads to Rwanda herself, hopeful for answers, something that will fill that emptiness inside her, hoping Lillian will have some of the answers she seeks.

Natalie’s family is fractured, and she’s tormented by memories that invade her dreams. During the day, her mind drifts to the family she has left, and those who have become her family. The past haunts her, but the present demands she revisit it, again and again. Raised by Lillian, Natalie is one of the 48 orphaned children Lillian raised.

Tucker works on Lillian’s farm / orphanage / school / home, he builds a clinic there for the local families. He was destined to be a surgeon in the footsteps of his father, but wanted a more personally meaningful way to live his life.

And then there’s Henry, an enigma of a man. A photographer, but a man who has demons of his own that he must either learn to fight, or they will destroy him.

Destruction. Genocide. Two words that don’t seem to fit the overall feeling of this story, there’s such a sense of the author’s respect and love for these people who endured so much, an awe for the nature and beauty of grace.

How all these people’s lives are woven together, the stories they have to share … it’s all lovingly woven together into a beautiful story that is about love, grace, forgiveness, the atrocities of war, and those sorrows that never really leave you but that fade to random moments of memories softened by time. It may not be the picture you had in your mind when you began your journey, but you can see the beauty that was created in its place at the end.


Pub Date: 01 Apr 2018


Many thanks for the ARC provided by Central Avenue Publishing

In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills by Jennifer Haupt is a novel the reader will not soon forget. Main character, Rachel, is grieving the loss of her baby and the death of her mother. She craves knowledge of the father that abandoned her and disappeared when she was a child. She embarks on a journey that leads her to war-ravaged Rwanda where her father was last known to have lived. She meets Lilly, the woman he turned to and also abandoned, who wants nothing to do with Rachel. Lilly runs a home for orphaned children. At the insistence of a man who is like Lilly’s son, she allows Rachel to stay, and the two gradually build a bond. Putting herself in great danger, Rachel finds out the truth of why her father disappeared from Lilly’s life, and her own. Haupt does an exceptional job of showing the reader the devastation that occurred in Rwanda without portraying it in an overly violent and bloody way. Her characters are intriguing and the reader will quickly bond with them.

This book, surprisingly enough, was downloaded to me by accident after I clicked a link in the Shelf Awareness newsletter that auto-downloaded the title from NetGalley. I normally am quite peeved when this happens, but in this case--fortunately--I thought that this book actually looked pretty interesting--and it was!

I feel as though so much happened in this book that I don't even know where to begin or how to craft a review, but I'll do my best to be brief but efficient. I was so surprised that this was a debut because Haupt has really written a magnificent work of fiction. The depth of her characters is so noticeable, and the pain describes amidst the events of this book felt so raw and realistic.

Haupt has a clear lyricism to her prose that makes every page of this book a breeze to gt through. There was something that just held it back from being five-stars for me, though i can't quite place my finger on what that was--it just lacked a certain something. This is a book about family, about how we are connected, and about love--highly recommended!

Wow.

Just wow.

I'm not sure how else to sum up my feelings and thoughts after reading IN THE SHADOW OF 10,000 HILLS BY by Jennifer Haupt. It is Haupt's debut novel, and it will be published on April 1, 2018 by Central Avenue Publishing.

IN THE SHADOW OF 10,000 HILLS is set in Rwanda in the early 2000's, and it tells the interweaving stories of three women who are searching for family and peace in the nation that was recently torn apart by genocide.
Lillian Carlson moved to Rwanda following the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. She witnessed the genocide firsthand as she tried to save children (and adults) by providing them with a home at the orphanage that she runs in the Rift Valley.

Rachel Shepherd travels to Rwanda looking for the father who abandoned her as a child. Her search leads her to Lillian's orphanage where her father sometimes lived during the years since she had last seen him. While Rachel doesn't find her father there, she does find some of the answers that she's looking for. She also finds a new family.

Nadine is a young Tutsi woman who managed to survive the genocide when so many others did not. Her parents and other family members were all murdered, leaving her as the sole survivor. Henry Shepherd, Rachel's father, found Nadine and brought her to Lillian's orphanage to heal. Nadine is trying to move on, embracing her second chance at life, but her horrifying past keeps dragging her back into nightmares she would prefer to forget.

The plot of IN THE SHADOW OF 10,000 HILLS is well-developed, and the prose is very well written. This is a page-turning, heartfelt novel that provides insight into the Rwandan genocide of the 1990's, as well as the American Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's. It will keep the reader engaged until the last page. All of the characters - main and secondary - are intriguing. The three main characters (Lillian, Rachel, and Nadine) stories are masterfully woven together into one heartbreaking and redeeming novel.

I received this book from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. What a powerful story. Set in post -genocide Rwanda, Rachel is on a mission to find her absent Father. She realizes he was in Rwanda. She meets Lillian. The mistress of her Father, but so much more. Lillian showed so much strength and determination through so many tough and horrific events. This is a must read!

I finished “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills” this morning! It was really good. It pulled at my heartstrings quite a bit as well as being uplifting as well. It’s really a conjecture of opposites.

Thanks to NetGalley for this e-arc! “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills” releases on April 1st 2018.

I’m reading this for the True Crime prompt of the Popsugar 2018 challenge, because although the story is fiction it’s about the real Rwandan genocide epidemic that took place in 1994..

“In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills” is the debut novel for author, Jennifer Haupt. The novel was certainly well researched and could have been her second or third novel, I thought.

4.5 Stars (5 on Goodreads)!

Spoilers Below...

“In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills” focuses on the devastation of the Rwandan genocide and its after effects on the people of Rwanda. We follow a young, American woman called Rachel, who’s pregnant at the beginning of novel. She goes through trauma of lots of different kinds throughout the story. She’s trying to find her father, Henry. Does she, though?

Rachel isn’t the only one who suffers. A male character, called Tucker, who is a doctor and who’s looking after a little girl, Rose for the majority of “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills” is also suffering as well as Rose, herself. As well as those characters, Lillian, the woman who Rachel seeks out for information about her father is suffering as well as a girl she looks after, Nadine.

There is clearly A LOT of suffering throughout “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills” in a miscarriage for a character, as well as a marriage breakup, as well as death, as well as potentially loosing someone close, but there’s also hope scattered throughout the novel too!

With all this suffering, though, there are hopeful moments, in a romance that develops between two characters and just an outpouring of love from other characters.

“It’s this place, so beautiful and full of promise. Rwanda, the people and the land, draw you in, take everything you have and make you dig deep in your soul, willingly, to keep searching for more”, is a prominent quote because the majority of the novel takes place in Rwanda. It’s also meaningful because it draws you in and leaves you wanting more, I think...

I don’t want to write any major spoilers or more quotes because I think this is a book where it’s best to go into it blind and be surprised by how good it is. Also, because it deals with real world problems it’s realistic and doesn’t play with the facts of death.

What did I like about “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills”?

I liked the relevance the novel bought to problems in the real world that most don’t see. I certainly didn’t know about the Rwandan genocide before reading this story.

I liked the characters and how each one bought something different to the story.

I liked the descriptions of the settings. The African ones, are described in great detail because most reading this, probably won’t have experienced them.

What didn’t I like about “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills”?

I didn’t like how we’re thrust into the past for 5 or so chapters in the middle of “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills”. I understand this was showing us what life was like before the genocide but the characters that I really cared about were all in the current story, not the past, so I skim read those. If we’d of had present day chapters breaking the past chapters up, I think it would have been better.

I’m giving “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills” 4.5 Stars because I really enjoyed it. The characters seemed like they could just jump off the page and into real life, they were written so well. I enjoyed every storyline brought up, particularly the romance. My favourite characters were Rachel, Tucker and Rose. They were the ones I felt closest to while reading, maybe because I’m the same sort of age as Rachel or just younger than her.

Will you be reading “In The Shadow Of 10,000 Hills”? Does it sound interesting to you?..

Jennifer Haupt is a journalist who has spent more than 25 years writing nonfiction essays and articles about women, their depression and grief, and helping them to heal. She utilizes all her knowledge and kindness to tell the stories of three divergently different women in her new novel,In The Shadow of 10,000 Hills. It is a remarkable debut. The story takes place in post-genocide Rwanda. Haupt weaves the stories of Lillian, a 60s activist who moved to Rwanda to help children after the death of Martin Luther King Jr.; Nadine, a young Rwandan survivor of the horrors of the genocide; and Rachel, an American woman whose father left her and her mother for Lillian when she was a young child. As Haupt says on her author page, "The common human bond, the thing that ties us all together and transcends our differences, is grief." Not only does she show us what it is to grieve, to lose, but also how, when we live through it, we can find grace. Perhaps where forgiveness is not possible. The Rwandans have a word for this concept, Amahoro, which is explored extensively throughout the book. Highly recommend this one.

This is not the first child Rachel Shepherd has lost, but it’s the one that stayed with her the longest, becoming a stillborn baby with a name rather than a miscarriage. She is heartbroken and feeling adrift after losing this baby, her mother recently, and possibly her marriage. She longs for family, for her roots, and so begins searching for her long-lost, journalist father, following the trail to a mysterious woman from his past, an American who raises orphans in Rwanda. Her father’s history is complicated, with her birth being the catalyst for the seemingly wrong turn in his youth. Ambiguous feelings arise with each new discovery, the hurt surfacing to be dealt with and move toward healing. Rachel’s need for family dredges up old wounds in Lillian, the inscrutable, second wife of her father, who does her best to stay above the quagmire of these ancient pains. Things have changed, and everyone finds something they didn’t know they were looking for, and didn’t know they needed.

This book digs down deep into the complexities of decisions affecting relationships of spouses, parent and child, and chosen family. It also portrays the genocide of Rwanda at an individual level, delving into the politics and showing the impossibility of the situation for former friends and neighbors.

I was fortunate to receive a digital ARC through NetGalley of this wonderful novel.

I also post this review to Goodreads, Facebook, and Twitter, and B&N upon launch.

I was extremely fascinated by this book because of the Rwanda genocide. I was expecting more historical reference to the history of Rwanda and was disappointed by only brief depictions throughout the book. It was slow to get started and a bit hard to connect with the characters at first. The last 30% of the book was a bit more interesting and fast paced.

Thank you to NetGalley for giving me an ARC in exchange for my candid review.

If you like a tense, action-packed fast-paced book---this is not the book for you. This book moves slowly and deliberately to reveal its story. Kind of like real life would be. But better. I loved this book--in spite of its horrific background story of genocide in Rwanda. The characters are real, and have joys and regrets, like real people. It is almost a gentle way of telling about this terrible time in Rwanda. And the author is correct---no one outside of Rwanda really knows and cares about this story which is sad. It is a horrible story, but one that should be a warning to all.

While the background story is horrific, the book has great moments of lightness, love, survival in spite of everything, and redemption. I really grew to love the characters. It is a wonderful story---well worth reading.

I loved the book.

Loved this book!.. I knew a little abouut the Rwanada genocide but this book informed me of so much more. I love to read historical ficton to help me update my knowledge and this book exceded my expectations. Will recommend,

A tapestry of lives revolving around one man; a father, a husband, a lover, who inadvertently brings together the different women in his life. Centered around both the US Civil Rights Movement and the 1994 Rwandan slaughter, Haupt entwines the histories of two nations within the stories of these women who are searching for hope, humanity and love, and who ultimately find themselves and the peace they need.
The subject matter is tragic, raw and heartbreaking, yet Haupt shines that light of hope throughout. This one is powerful.