"Scattered Links" wins first place in the Kindle Book Promos 2014 Book Contest and is selected as a finalist in the 2014 Reader's Favorite International Awards.
The novel explores a complex psychiatric illness associated with children who are unable to form healthy emotional bonds with other people - most notably in adoption cases. The story captures the daily life of the orphaned in post-Soviet Russia and details the pain of neglect, self-worth issues and detachment experienced by children who have been emotionally or physically abused at an early age. Author Michelle Weidenbenner said she was inspired to write Scattered Links after taking a trip to Russia to adopt a daughter. "I'm very pro-adoption, but there are problems that can arise from adopting a post-institutionalized child, foster child, or any child, and I wanted to show this problem in my novel." Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) isn't a common theme of adoption books but it is a "real" issue many people don't know exists, says Weidenbenner. "It's sad. Some adoptive parents find the children they've brought home to raise are too difficult to handle and case workers are forced to rehome the children."Videos