Download Your Copy My Heart Is Not My Own Envisioned By Michael Wuitchik Available In Audiobook

won a copy of "My Heart is Not My Own" by Michael Wuitchik through the Goodreads Giveaway Contest, This is a heart wrenching story that takes place in West Africa about the resilience and will to live of a Sierra Leonean midwife, Mariama Lahai, in the midst of a brutal civil war.


John Rouke, a Canadian physician, a psychiatrist living in Vancouver, British Columbia, receives a package all dirty and ripped from Corporal John Lewis, Canadian Forces, United Nations Office in Sierra Leone, with an envelope attached.
The writer knew him at the Connaught Hospital during the dark days, It had been supplied by a priest belonging to a woman unknown, to the UN Mission, Inside is a book with a leather cover, It is the diary of Mariama Lahai, a nurse he friended when he travelled to Sierra Leone

to offer medical attention and supplies to the victims of the civil war.
This was over ten years ago, when his medical group was evacuated from Freetown in, At the time of evacuation, John and Mariama delivered a baby girl, whose mother had died, and Mariama adopts her, Mariama was smart, dedicated and very resourceful, . . she knew how to make do with less,

For John, reading the diary brought back the trauma of Sierra Leone, with all its' haunting memories, John also met a physician, called Momodu, at the hospital, who left a mask with John before he disappeared at the time John was evacuated, John never talked about his time in Freetown, and his wife, Nadia never talked about the war in Croatia, The mask hung on John's office wall and a photo of Mariama and Momodu sat on his desk, as a reminder of the raw memories of the past.


John and Mariama had been lovers before he met Nadia, He met Nadia in, two years after he was evacuated from Freetown, a nurse at St Peter's Hospital where he began his psychiatric residency, He had practiced emergency surgery in Sarajevo and Freetown, Nadia had survived the war in Bosnia, and didn't want to talk about it,

John receives a phone message at home that said, "Dr, Rouke, an old friend awaits you, The mask want to come home, It is time. " In one week after ten years , John hears from Momodu and Mariama

Nadia, now two months pregnant reads the diary, . . and knows they were lovers, and tells her husband he must return to Sierra Leone, and return the mask and search for both of them, So John returns to Freetown and starts his journey to deal with his demons from the past,

The rapes and hardships that Mariama endured portrays her inner strength and courage to protect her child, It is evident that there was much research that went into writing this book, An excellent novel.

God never gives you more than you can handle,
I won this book on a contest on Goodreads,

Nadia Varga is holding a package that was just delivered to her husband of five years, Dr, John Rourke. Nadia knows from the return address on the package that this will flood back very painful memories of his time in Africa when he was in emergency medicine and the Balkan war was on.
Upon John's arrival home, he carefully opens his package and found the diary of Mariama Lahai, When he was in Sierra Leone he befriended a Dr, Momodu Camara and Nurse Mariama Lahai who he had a fleeting affair with and was very fond of, The diary began just after the hospital John and his coworkers worked, was taken over and John was airlifted to safety without Mariama who refused to leave the sick and injured.
It further explained how she took a newborne baby whose mother died while giving her life to try seek a safe haven only to be captured by the rebels.
It was during this time Mariama saw and endured atrocities that the rebels inflicted on herself and other innocent people where gang rapes took place and children were turned into soldiers etc.
After both John and Nadia read the diary, at Nadia's insistence John must return to Africa to find his friends and relive the horrors that have plagued him for years and hopefully finally find closure.
So with Nadia two month pregnant, John leaves his home in Vancouver and promises her he will return to her before she feels their baby's first kick,

Author Michael Wuitchuk does an exquisite job in writing this story explaining in painful detail the terrible horrors of the Balkan war, A fabulous novel that had me up to the wee hours of the morning unable to put it down, A heart wrenching story in particular about the women of Sierra Leone, Books set in Africa, fiction or nonfiction usually fascinate me as this one did, It held my attention to the end, The story weaves the historical context of the horrifying war in Sierra Leone, intercultural encounters and a man's personal quest to find lost colleagues and friends, I thought the relationship with his wife back home in Canada grounded the story well and provided a counterpoint to the brutality of the war in Sierra Leone.
I just did not want this book to be over, How have I not heard of this book or it's author I was a little nervous starting My Heart Is Not My Own by Michael Wuitchik because the reviews on the back cover made me think that it would be heavy, disturbing and grotesque.


And it was,

I was on a tight deadline to read and review My Heart Is Not My Own for a blog tour, but once I picked it up, I couldnt put it down.
I read half of the book the first evening I got it, I would have stayed up all night reading it if my husband hadnt said that I should go to sleep,

Ten years after Dr, John is evacuated from Sierra Leone during the Civil War, he receives a diary in the mail belonging to Mariama, the Sierra Leonean nurse that he developed a very close bond with due to their working conditions.
He learns through this diary that she was captured by the rebels and atrocious war crimes were committed against her for months, Ghosts from his past haunt him, and he leaves his pregnant wife Nadia behind to look for lost friendships and closure back in Sierra Leone,

My Heart Is Not My Own is a story told by John with flashbacks to his time at the hospital in Sierra Leone, interspersed with Mariamas horrifying diary entries to seamlessly, rapidly, and effortlessly carry the plot forward.
Johns character was endearing and engaging, but it was Mariama who I related to and sympathized with, Despite everything that she had been through, she could still find a way to be happy and at peace,

I also loved Mohammed, Johns driver and guide on his trip back to Africa, I think that he really showed me what it is like to be Sierra Leonean, and he was absolutely hilarious,

My Heart Is Not My Own was certainly an intense read, and there was no lack of excitement in this book, There was something captivating, horrifying, or thrilling on every page, I am always up for a good adventure, and that is just what Johns returning journey through Sierra Leone was,

I was completely enthralled by life in Africa, and couldnt get enough of it, So much is so completely different from life in North America, and that reminded me again that there is a much bigger world out there, There were many bits and pieces of the African culture, lifestyle and environment peppered throughout the book, such as the common foods that they eat chop, bushmeat, groundnuts, weather harmattan winds, and womens roles in society including female circumcision.
Superstition plays a major role in everyones lives, The health standards are quite different from here with raw sewage and garbage in the roadside ditches, and hotels with automatic insecticide dispensers that periodically spray down the room.


I also learned a lot about the Civil War, which I am embarrassed to admit was off my radar at the time and I knew absolutely nothing about it coming in.


There was a lot of hintdropping throughout the book that piqued my interest but may or may not have been explained by the end, I felt that I may still have been owed a few explanations after I finished the book,

Now I am sad that I have come to the end of My Heart Is Not My Own, I wasnt ready to leave Africa, Mariama and John, The end is quite fitting with the rest of the bookbeautiful and sad,

Read more of my reviews at: sitelinkwww, bookwookie. ca.