Magdalena’s Shadow

Coco is the daughter of Magdalena Rodriguez, famed Argentinean supermodel. However, having a supermodel for a mother means that Coco has not seen Magdalena for years. As her mother works, going to photoshoots and parties, Coco lives in a penthouse apartment in Chicago, doing her best to ignore the anxiety that wailing winds rushing past her windows induce. Her anxiety is not helped by the housekeeper, a woman she refers to simply as the Keeper, who abuses her physically and emotionally. However, everything changes when a strange package arrives at the apartment. Within the package is an infant and a letter written in Spanish. The Keeper puts the child in Coco’s care, and the sixteen-year-old girl names the girl Bebe after a word plucked from the letter. She does her best to be a good caregiver to the child, even as the Keeper insists there isn’t enough money to give the child the good formula Coco wishes to give her.

Dealing with a mysteriously arriving child isn’t the only trial Coco must face. One day, she meets the man who lives in the other penthouse apartment, Rob Banks. He’s a nearly thirty-year-old divorced father with a daughter close to Bebe’s age, and he and Coco begin a close friendship. Coco, however, has feelings for Rob that go beyond friendship, and, as time goes on, she wonders whether his feelings for her go beyond friendship as well. The problem is that he is eleven years older than she and a romantic relationship between them would be inappropriate at best. Can she navigate the murky waters of affection for a man who is one of the first people in her life to show her true kindness? Can she break out from her secluded life and live her own, free from her mother’s shadow?

Magdalena’s Shadow is billed as a romance, but it doesn’t read quite like any romance I’ve encountered before. Anyone looking for a typical (some would say formulaic) romance will be surprised–though for me the surprise was a pleasant one. Orme does away with the typical formula and conventions of a romance as most readers know it; though Coco’s love for Rob is a strong theme throughout the book, the story itself focuses more on her attempts to find herself and define herself as her own woman. Orme does a fantastic job of bringing Coco to life and showing her growth and strength through the course of the book, and I utterly loved every chapter.