UNTETHERED

Julie Lawson Timmer’s new novel UNTETHERED explores what ties truly form a family and how, sometimes, love knows no bounds.

Char Hawthorn has a great life. A freelance editor and college professor married to a wonderful man and stepmother to a happy, spirited fifteen-year-old daughter, she loves her family and the joyful rhythms of work and parenting. But when her husband is killed in a car accident, the “step” in Char’s title suddenly matters a great deal. In the eyes of the law, the “mother” title, and all the rights to daughter Allie, belong to Lindy, Allie’s self-absorbed biological mother, who wants the girl to move to her home in California.

Allie begins to struggle in school, and tensions mount between her and Char, though Allie’s connection to young Morgan Crew, a ten-year-old girl Allie tutors, seems to keep her grounded. Sadly, Morgan, who was adopted out of foster care after a neglect-filled early childhood, engages in self-harm, making her adoptive parents anxious.

When Morgan disappears, Allie is distraught, and then takes matters into her own hands. Allie takes the family car to rescue Morgan, who has been given away to strangers—“rehomed” by her desperate adoptive parents, who feared for their special-needs son. Though Char manages to track the girls down, she must face an irate Lindy, a future without Allie, and the question of Morgan, caught in a terrible crack in the system.


Julie Lawson Timmer is the author of the acclaimed Five Days Left, which was a hit at home and abroad, with great reviews and subrights sales in 15 languages. Timmer has a law degree from Southern Methodist University and works as in-house legal counsel in Michigan.