In 1960s Atlanta, Lillian Carlson was swept along in the Civil Rights Movement; listening to Martin Luther King speak and working to see change. She fell in love with Henry, a photographer intent on capturing the impact of solitary moments, but violence tore them apart. Heartbroken, Lillian moved to Rwanda to run an orphanage, making a difference in the lives of children.

Nadine is a young Tutsi woman whose life was shattered by the Rwandan genocide. While she seeks to make her dreams come true, the violence of the past haunts her present and her future, and the secret she keeps could endanger everyone around her.

Rachel is Henry’s daughter, reeling from the loss of her mother and her baby, and desperate to find the father who abandoned her years ago. She knows she needs to heal, but she doesn’t expect to find so much hope in a country scarred by hatred and violence.

This book. This book. It started out slowly, but I kept reading because of the characters. I loved all three women and wanted to see each of them find peace and happiness. The Rwandan culture comes to life on the pages, as the author delves into the horrors that happened between the Tutsi and the Hutus—and the survivors’ search for peace. I knew almost nothing about the genocide before reading this, so that part of it horrified me, but there is so much hope in this novel, and the beauty of Rwanda fills the pages.

(Galley provided by Central Avenue Publishing in exchange for an honest review.)

I was afraid I might not be part of the audience for whom this book was written. Boy was I ever mistaken!!!! I am so thankful I gave this a try as it has ended up being a book I will buy to have on my shelf to read again. And again. What a treasure. Guess what book a lot of my friends will be receiving as a gift from me? thank you, Jennifer Haupt for writing this beautiful story.

This was a powerful, well written, and thoroughly researched novel, taking place in the horrific backdrop of the genocide in Rwanda. A story about 3 women, from different backgrounds, with their own personal sorrows, in the search for family, forgiveness, peace and reconciliation. Their lives are intertwined in "Kwizera", an orphanage in Rwanda that means "hope", as these women create healing bonds. A breathtaking, heartbreaking, beautiful and sad story that felt so significant to be heard. I thought it was amazing! Thank you NetGalley, the author and publisher for this unforgettable early reader edition. I highly recommend it!

The intersecting lives of 3 women in Africa make this a book to remember. From a Tutsi woman who has experienced a difficult life, to Lillian who has created an orphanage near the Rift Valley, to Rachel, who is searching for her father; these women each experiences their own version of loss and redemption.

10,000 stars to In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills! 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

I’m pretty lucky in my reading life. I enjoy the vast majority of books I read, including many, many that I love. So when I read a stand-out, something mesmerizing and completely memorable, like this book, I want to shout from the hilltops (rooftops simply aren’t tall enough, and I can never resist a pun!) - READ THIS BOOK. Here’s why.

Lovable characters. So many of my book friends thrive on lovable characters. In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills has complex, endearing, beloved main and secondary characters.

Rachel is pregnant when the reader meets her. Her mother has recently passed away from cancer, and she’s been estranged from her father for years.

Lillian is a human rights’ activist now running an orphanage in Rwanda. How she got there, and who she is, wow, what a woman. What a story.

Tucker is a medical doctor living in Rwanda and a friend of Lillian. He has his own story as to how he landed there, and he’s one of the most nurturing, loving male characters I’ve witnessed in print.

Nadine is a college student who lost her parents in the genocide of 1994 in Rwanda. She comes of age in this beautiful story, and it’s like witnessing a metamorphosis.

I could keep going with these characters. They are stunning, fleshed out, fallible, vulnerable people.

The writing. Jennifer Haupt spent eleven years writing this story. The investment she had in these characters shines in her writing. The lives of these people intersect in a masterful way. The writing has perfect pacing, ideal flow. The descriptions of Rwanda’s hillsides, the wildlife, and its people, are all done with a light, but impeccably-drawn, hand. Jennifer Haupt’s devotion to this story is apparent through her writing.

The messages. Reading this book is a journey of emotions, and I want you to discover your own messages within these pages. I personally took away lessons on hope and the healing power of forgiveness.

In the Shadow 10,000 Hills is a captivating story of enduring people. It is the prime example of a favorite book of mine, a most-huggable book.

Thanks to Jennifer Haupt for writing this treasure of a novel, Central Avenue Publishing for allowing me to read an early copy, and Netgalley for the ARC. In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills is available now!

In The Shadow of 10,000 Hills is both a haunting and lovely book that deals with the effects of the Rwandan genocide. It's about very different characters from different walks of life that fate has brought together in Rwanda six years after the 1994 mass slaughter of the Tutsis by a government-backed, hate-fueled Hutu people (it's estimated 800,000, mostly the Tutsi minority, were murdered). There's Lillian, a civil-rights activist who made Rwanda her home and opened her house to raise orphans, Tucker, a UCLA medical school drop-out who desperately wants to help the Rwandan people, Henry, a photographer in search of the perfect photo, Henry's daughter, Rachel, who he abandoned when she was 8 so that he could go to Africa to search for that special photograph as well as for his former lover, Lillian, and Nadine, a victim of the horrific cruelty of the Hutu massacre. The story follows these characters lives from before, during and after the genocide, and their attempts to come to terms with themselves, and also this country, so full of beauty, that allowed the unspeakable to occur and now is desperately trying to heal while facing the magnitude of insurmountable horrors. Some Rwandans say that in the 90 days in which the massacre occurred, that Jesus was lost in the Rift Valley with tears so heavy in his eyes that he could not find his way out.

Yet there is hope among all of the tragedy and sorrow, perhaps best said by Lillian: "Maybe...everyone here is summoning what's left of their faith, some praying and some only hoping that mankind's capacity for love is greater than the history of our deeds."

In The Shadow of 10,000 Hills, Jennifer Haupt is able to deal with the horror of the Rwandan genocide's impact on both Rwandans and outsiders honestly and does not downplay the horrors; but there is always with an underlying theme of hope and compassion that culminates in a powerful and wonderful ending. I recommend this book without reservation, and it is one whose story and characters will stay with me for a long time.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley. All thoughts and opinions are my own.

4.5 sad but ever so relevant stars

It is always difficult to think about the events of genocide. The words never again seem to ring in our minds and yet never again has happened so many times since the horrendous Holocaust set in place by Hitler.

In this novel, we look at the survivors of the Rwandan genocide. How does one continue onward knowing that they have survived and wondering often why me? The characters in this novel are wonderfully diverse and the author offers an insight that is both poignant and filled with the sadness of loss.

From the character of Lillian, a young girl initially involved in the civil rights movement, who then moved to Rwanda to open an orphanage, to the ever complex and oftentimes hard to understand to Henry, a white man who times dictated could not love a black woman, the tale is woven. Henry love Lillian and yet he leaves her seeming to wander about as he tries to capture through photography the world he sees. We meet Rachel, a daughter from Henry's fist marriage, searching for a father she never really knew. There is Tucker, a medical student who goes to Rwanda looking to help and find meaning in his life. There are also the survivors of this genocide Chloe and Nadine who struggle with being left behind in a world where nothing remains of their family.

This is a debut novel and this author has shown a wonderful ability to capture the pain, the loss, and the sheer effort that people go through trying to rebuild not only themselves but the country of 10,000 hills.

Thanks you to Jennifer Haupt, the publisher, and Edelweiss for making an advanced copy of this novel available to this reader.

When you read or hear the word "genocide" extreme examples come immediately to mind - The Nazi genocide during WWII or even perhaps the Assyrian/Armenian genocide in 1915. But there have been very few periods of time during the 20th and 21st century when someone in the world wasn't trying to obliterate their competition for food or money or bragging rights by mass murder. The Rwandan Hutu's and Tutsi's battled one another from 1962 until a forced ceasefire in 1993. On April 6, 1994 a plane carrying Rwanda's Hutu governing leader Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian President Cyprien Ntaryamira crashed on it's descent into Kijali. The following days of maham brought the total of dead to half million to a million people. Over 70% of the Tutsi residents of Rwanda were murdered or tortured and murdered or raped and murdered. There was no recourse. There was no access to safe ground. There was no hope.

Jennifer Haupt has taken all of that and put it into a clear, concise telling that makes it plain and personal and also keeps the heart involved. It is works such as this that will make the world a much smaller, much kinder place. Thank you.

I received a free electronic copy of this historical based on fact novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you all for sharing your hard work with me.

Beautiful and lyrical are just two of the words that I used to describe this book that gripped you from the very first page until the last with all of its wonderful feels. The characters were people you could easily become emotionally involved with. This is a definite must read because it's a story that will stay with you long after you have read the last word. Happy reading!

Everyone has been LOVING this novel but to me it fell a little flat. None of the characters really resonated with me and the writing was a little too simple. I will also say as a disclaimer that I've just had a baby and am finding that it's altered my reading preferences, hopefully it's temporary.

Rachel Shepherd decides to try and find her father, Henry Shepherd, who abandoned her when she was eight years old. Her quest brings her to Rwanda to meet Lillian, a woman who looks after orphans on her farm. Lillian also had a long-term relationship with Henry, and Rachel hopes Lillian can answer her questions about Henry. While in Rwanda, Rachel learns some things about her father but also learns about the Rwandan Genocide, especially as it affected Nadine, Lillian’s adopted daughter.

Multiple points of view are given; those of Rachel and Lillian predominate but those of Nadine and Tucker, a doctor who lives on Lillian’s farm, and even Henry are also included at times. Each of them is living with intense grief; all have, in some way, lost loved ones. They are all trying to find amahoro, the Kinyarwanda word for “peace.” To find this inner peace, they must learn to forgive; only by doing so can they find hope and learn to truly love.

It is Nadine’s story which is most compelling. Though she survived the genocide, she cannot forget it. Like all Rwandans, she must live next to those who participated in the killings and rapes. Lillian mentions, “’Most of us don’t expect justice, not really. . . . The goal of the gacaca [trials] is reconciliation and forgiveness. . . . Not so much letting go [of the past] as finding a way to live with it.’” Providing a personal, individual perspective on the genocide is the novel’s most noteworthy element.

I cannot say that I really enjoyed the book. There are many things about it that annoyed me. First of all, Rachel is so self-centred and whiny at the beginning that it is difficult to connect with her. She wants her husband to say “I don’t blame you” and she needs to know that her father loved her and she needs her husband to tell her he needs her. Everything is about her! Then her approach to finding her father makes no sense. I understand that getting her to Rwanda is crucial for her transformation and for the novel’s thematic development, but if she can use the internet to find Lillian’s email address, why doesn’t she use it to try and locate her father? Only much latter does she say, “I’ve been thinking, I’ll go look for him.’” Lillian responds to Rachel’s first email by saying she wishes she could help Rachel. Why, then, doesn’t she give the information she does have about Henry’s last whereabouts?

There are other things that bothered me. Caribou are North American reindeer but they are also found in Africa? What’s the deal with the stolen laptop? It is never mentioned again. Why does Christian keep Rachel’s passport? A man who was abandoned as a child would abandon his own child? One moment Rachel “jackknifes the bike into the grassy ditch and jumps off” and the next minute she claims that someone “’drove right over it’”? Rachel is Jewish (claiming “Her mother insisted that they attend services for the high holidays every year to ask for absolution for their sins and then start fresh again on Rosh Hashanah”), yet she “misses waking up early on Christmas morning, as excited as a kid”? Rachel brings a snow globe with her to Africa and her father travels around the continent with “several jars of peanut butter”? Henry goes to Africa because Lillian writes to him and because “The Life photo editor said he would be interested in seeing some follow-up shots of the girl [who] . . . devoted her life to caring for orphans in Africa,” but later he has “only a vague notion of finding Lillian and photographing her farm.” Yet even later, he decides “It’s time to go find Lillian’s farm, take the photos he came for.” How can Rachel claim “Her father told her stories about Kwizera [Lillian’s farm]” when he had not yet been there and received only one letter from Lillian? A student would be expelled from university for failing a midterm exam? Rachel’s mother “didn’t want their daughter to be alone in the world, without a family” and asks Henry to come see Rachel but then tells him to leave almost as soon as he arrives? I read an eARC so perhaps some of these problems will be rectified, but these types of discrepancies (and there are many others I didn’t mention) affected my enjoyment of and appreciation for the book.
Rachel’s development and the insight into the Rwandan Genocide make this book a worthwhile read. However, it needs considerable editing and is unduly lengthy. Parts of it are also predictable, the romance being a prime example.

Note: I received an eARC of the book from the publisher via NetGalley.

In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills is a deeply moving story that takes you from the strife of Atlanta during the Civil Rights Movement, through the struggle in post-genocide Rwanda. The book is a riveting page-turner. One that is not easily put down and definitely not easily forgotten
Memorable characters will make you feel a part of their lives as they deal with family conflict, love and profound loss. I would highly recommend this book.

WOW. This book grabbed me and I absolutely fell in love. The characters, the setting - and especially the way the author handled such a sensitive topic. It's not easy to address the atrocities that occurred in Rwanda - but the author does such a fantastic job of grabbing you and getting you so deeply entrenched with the characters. I loved it and am recommending to all my friends.

How do people forgive each other? Really forgive, not just say that it’s okay or that it doesn’t matter? The concept of forgiveness is at the heart of In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, by Jennifer Haupt, a beautiful novel set mostly in the aftermath of the Rwandan Genocide. The novel opens in New York in 2000 with Rachel Shepherd, a young woman who very much wants to be a mother. When she loses her child, she sets off on a quest to find her the father who left her when she was a child. Her journey lands her in the middle of a story that she could never have imagined.

Henry Shepherd was a photographer who was always searching for something. If asked, I doubt he’d be able to say what it was he was looking for. He just seemed to know what he didn’t want. In the 1960s, he wanted Lillian Carlson, but they couldn’t be together after he realized that he couldn’t deal with the hatred interracial couples drew in Georgia at the time. He also knew that he couldn’t stay with the white woman he married after he left Lillian and their daughter. Working for an ad agency and putting up with a woman who could never believe that he loved her was soul-killing. When he left them, he also left Lillian, Rachel, and his wife with questions about what went wrong.

Those questions—plus her own grief over her lost daughter and her inability to communicate with her husband—drive Rachel to make a crazy choice. She scares up as many clues about her father’s past to try and find him. Instead, she finds Lillian, who is running an orphanage in Rwanda. When an invitation to visit comes, Rachel jumps on a plane and goes to talk to Lillian. She had no idea what to expect, but she certainly didn’t expect to find friends, almost an adoptive family. She also didn’t expect to land herself in the middle of the lingering dangers surrounding the truth and reconciliation trials that followed the Genocide. Her emotionally perilous journey turns into a physically perilous one.

Like Happiness, In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills is about resilience in the face of tragedies that can break a person and finding the inner strength to heal. I love the message of resilience, but also what this book has to say about blame and forgiveness. Is it possible for a child to forgive a father for walking out on her? Is it possible for a wife to forgive her husband for leaving her in a moment of need? Is it ever possible for a survivor to forgive the perpetrators of the horrific crimes of the Rwandan Genocide? This book shows us how some people might answer those questions. It is an amazing novel.

I received a free copy of this book for review consideration from the publisher via NetGalley. It will be released 1 April 2018.

One of my 2018 reading goals is to increase the number of books I read that take place in places other than the U.S. and Europe, so when I read the blurb for In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills, I leapt at the chance to review it. It's a story of indescribable depth, and I'm so very glad I took a chance on an unknown author and picked it up.

Rachel Shepherd's father abandoned her when she was a young child, a fact that has shaped her life in ways she doesn't fully understand. It's been nearly twenty years since she saw or heard from him, and the pain of his absence sometimes feels as fresh as it did on the day she woke up to find him gone. Now, after suffering a miscarriage, Rachel is feeling particularly adrift. Her husband seems to expect her to set aside her grief and get on with the business of living, but Rachel isn't ready to do that quite yet, and instead, she feels strangely compelled to reconnect with her father. Maybe if she learns why he left her and her mother all those years ago, she can finally find some peace.

Thirty years earlier, Lillian Carlson left the United States behind and headed to Rwanda, a place where she hoped she could make a noticeable difference to those around her. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. hit her hard, and she's no longer content to live a life of privilege and plenty. Instead, she establishes a small orphanage near the Rift Valley and has spent the past three decades creating a safe haven for the children orphaned by the seemingly endless violence the citizens of Rwanda visit upon one another.

Rachel discovers a link between her father and Lillian, and she immediately reaches out to Lillian via email, hoping the other woman might be able to help her reconnect with him. There's a part of Lillian that knows she should respond to Rachel's request and share the story of the tumultuous relationship she shared with Henry, but another part of her is unwilling to open up old wounds. She and Henry have been lovers on and off for the past thirty years, but it's been five years since Lillian last laid eyes on him, and the reasons for his sudden departure from her life aren't things she feels comfortable sharing with his daughter. Fortunately, Tucker, a local doctor is able to convince her that opening up to Rachel might bring her some amount of personal healing. It's not an easy decision, but once Rachel arrives in Rwanda and begins working her way into the hearts of those around her, Lillian begins to warm to the younger woman.

With the help of Lillian and her adopted daughter Nadine, Rachel begins to piece together bits of information about her father's life. Unfortunately, what she discovers will test her in ways she never thought possible, for Henry was keeping some terrible secrets from everyone who loved him. What these three very different women discover as they search for the truth about Henry and about themselves could bring them closer together, or tear them apart forever.

The story is told from various points of view. Rachel and Lillian are our main narrators, but we also spend time with Tucker, Nadine, and even Henry himself. I'm a big fan of this narrative style, as it allows the reader to see things from a variety of perspectives rather than only getting one or two sides of the story.

The author has managed to create a group of very complex characters, people I sometimes struggled to like. Lillian was especially difficult for me to relate to, because while I admired the selfless way she opens her heart and home to countless orphaned children, I sometimes found her attitude toward the adults in her life hard to swallow. She seems to always want to be the person in charge, even if the decisions she makes aren't the right ones, and she obviously resents anyone who tries to change her mind about things. She does get better about this as the story progresses though, and I liked her quite a bit better in the second half of the book than I did at the beginning.

In the Shadow of 10,000 Hills proved to be a very challenging read for me, not because I disliked the story, but because the subject matter was incredibly difficult to take in. I don't live under a rock, so I'm aware of the brutality taking place all over the world, but Ms. Haupt brings it to life in such a stark, visceral way. There were a few times I had to step away from the book, just to give myself time to process some of the horrifying things the characters were experiencing. Even so, I am so glad I chose to read this novel, and I urge anyone looking for a fascinating story with diverse characters and a complex plot to give it a try.

Buy it at: Amazon/iBooks/Nook/Kobo

I remember when I saw the film, Hotel Rwanda . I was horrified and ashamed that I had paid so little attention to what happened in Rwanda in 1994. I wondered why the world had done so little to stop this genocide with over 800,000 people murdered. While this novel is about the horrors of the genocide, it’s also about how deep sorrow and inexplicable loss give people the strength and power to move forward and take care of each other, to find peace - amahoro . Jennifer Haupt in a brief introduction to her novel in her own review reflects on this : “I began writing this story, without knowing it, while visiting Rwanda in December 2006, as a journalist, interviewing survivors of the genocide 12 years earlier and humanitarian aid workers drawn to this still-grieving country. During that month, I discovered the stories of amahoro that would serve as the bones of a novel, including my own longing for a kind of peace that I had been searching for as long as I could remember but never knew how to name.” https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2109796188?book_show_action=true&from_review_page=1

In Rwanda in 1994, in the midst of the genocide, a young girl named Nadine suffers inexplicable brutality, loses her family, yet she survives. In New York City in 2000, a woman named Rachel is grieving her own personal losses. She thinks about her father who left many years before begins again to wonder where he is now, why he never came back. In Rwanda in 2000, Lillian a woman who has been there 30 years, cares for orphans, including Nadine, who is now a college student. An activist in the Civil Rights Movement, she was broken after the assassination of Martin Luther King and a relationship that seemed impossible. These three women have something in common - they all love Henry Shepherd and he has abandoned all of them . He’s Rachel’s father and left when she was a child. He is the love of Lillian’s life, but was not always there when she needed him. He saved Nadine’s life and was like a father to her when her parents were killed but is no where to be found when she needs him now. Through the eyes of these women I came to know some things about Henry which made me wonder about this man, the photographer, the father . Is he a good man or a selfish man concerned for his own sense of adventure? It is through the stories of these women that we discover the man. While the story centers on this, my favorite character was Tucker, the young doctor who first came to Rwanda as a Red Cross worker. He has chosen to remain because this life is much more meaningful to him than the comfortable life he led in California and because he too has been affected by losses during the genocide. He stays mostly because of a little girl named Rose.

The narrative moves around in time and between places so I had to pay attention to the chapter headings which indicated the year and place. While that felt a little disjointed at first, the rhythm of the story eventually blended well the past and present. The difficult chapters were those in 1994 Rwanda when the brutal killings are described vividly. These are offset by beautiful descriptions of the landscape and by the parts of the narrative that do not take place in 1994. I can’t do anything except highly recommend this book. I found it to be so many things - beautifully written, stunningly enlightening and informative of the horrors, more than heartbreaking in its depiction of the depth of grief that haunts these characters, and amazingly uplifting when it didn’t seem possible.

I received an advanced copy of this book from Central Avenue Publishing through NetGalley.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Central Avenue Publishing, and the author, Jennifer Haupt.

An incredibly emotive, powerful, and intimate story of three different women, focusing on an intensely harrowing period in Rwanda’s history.
The genocide of the mid 1990s is something I knew only a little about, and so was fascinated to learn more in this novel, which covers some of the most important facts, and doesn’t shy away from the more distressing details. However, it always comes around to forgiveness, hope, love, and the desire for Amahoro (peace).
All the characters were beautifully presented and well-formed, and incredibly engaging. However, there were a few parts of the book that felt a little out of tempo, and so there was a bit of a disjointed feel at times.
I would still highly recommend this novel, and it has prompted me to do some more reading of my own into this country’s fascinating history.

It's hard to know where to start with this profoundly gorgeous book. Evocative, lyrical, powerful...this book grabs the reader by the throat and forces one to look at the survivors of the Rwandan genocide, and it doesn't let go easily as I found myself continuously thinking of this story well after turning the final page. First, the characters - oh my, the deeply complex, beautifully flushed out people who inhabit these pages: Lillian, a young girl involved in the beginnings of the civil rights movement in America, who eventually moves to Rwanda and starts an orphanage; Henry, the white man Lillian loves during a time it wasn't allowed, a photographer, a father, a wanderer, a lost man; Tucker, a young medical student who comes to Rwanda seeking meaning in his life; Rachel, Henry's daughter and grieving mother, who seeks answers about her father to fill the empty spaces in her heart; Chloe and Nadine, survivors of the genocide, living victims whose life will never be the same; and most importantly, the country of Rwanda, the land of 10,000 hills, whose land is rich with both tradition and hate, the land that needs to heal and regrow. Author Jennifer Haupt, a journalist who gathered the stories of the Rwandan survivors and wove it into a breathtakingly beautiful book, shows great talent in her debut novel. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

The dramatic opening grabs the attention immediately. (It is a necessary relief when Chapter One
moves a whole world away...)
This is a hard, hard book to read : as with Holocaust stories, it is uncomfortable for the reader, but - we owe it to these people to learn of their history. To care enough to share their pain. To call them our brothers & sisters, & do what we can to prevent its happening ever again. Once we have the knowledge, we can no longer do nothing.

First of all thank you to the publishers for giving me this advanced copy and I apologise that it has taken me a while to get round to this. The novel is obviously written by someone who understand Rwanda and its history and based upon real life experiences. It is breathtaking in its depth and sweep and carries the reader into that time and culture. It is not always comfortable to read but is nonetheless difficult to put down. The characters were believable and as a this authorreader i had sympathy for most of them. I would certainly read more by