Adopting a baby can be a beautiful, life-changing journey. But it can also go terribly awry. In Holly Brown’s second novel, A NECESSARY END, a couple learns the hard way just how tenuous --- and dangerous --- the experience can turn out to be.

As a second-grade teacher, 39-year-old Adrienne spends her days surrounded by children. Unfortunately for her, she doesn’t have any of her own. But while she obsessively wishes she could get pregnant and considers plans to adopt, her husband, Gabe, feels no regretful emotions of the sort.

An overextended yet lazy car salesman, Gabe relishes the bachelor pad-ish life he’s built for himself. He can indulge in crazy sex without his wife, hang out with the boys, and earn buckets of cash on the side playing poker at the casino. No diapers to change. No wailing babies to deal with. What’s not to like?

"Adopting a baby can be a beautiful, life-changing journey. But it can also go terribly awry. In Holly Brown’s second novel, A NECESSARY END, a couple learns the hard way just how tenuous --- and dangerous --- the experience can turn out to be."

Drama ensues when Adrienne’s “adoption phone” rings, and 19-year-old Leah, a very pregnant young woman on the verge of giving birth, proposes a risky plan: She’ll come to California to give birth, live with Adrienne and Gabe for a year to see if they’re worthwhile parents, and then sign the adoption papers --- all while living on a monthly stipend provided by Adrienne and Gabe.

Sounds risky, yes? Of course it is. But if Brown’s sophomore novel has anything in common with her first (DON’T TRY TO FIND ME), it’s that her selfish characters tend to act atrociously --- and make unwise decisions. For Adrienne, the pull of motherhood is too strong to resist, and the litany of glaring risks (that Leah might mooch off them for a year, then back out at the last minute; that Leah is 19 and shouldn’t be calling the shots; that this will be a repeat of a previous experience with a supposedly pregnant woman who tried to scam them for money) is overshadowed by Adrienne’s intense need for a baby in order to find fulfillment.

But Adrienne isn’t the only cuckoo bird in the nest. When Leah moves in with the couple and acts as most slim, gorgeous 19-year-old girls do (oblivious and self-centered), instead of siding with his wife, Gabe shamelessly flirts with Leah and shares intimate details about his love life with the girl, then wonders why it backfires in the end.

Speaking of the end, it’s a doozy --- but one not wholly unexpected. The fact that the adoption process doesn’t go as planned --- or as any of the characters involved had hoped --- should come as no surprise, least of all to the reader. What is a bit of a shocker is just how out of hand the mess gets, including the spiderweb of secrets and lies that Adrienne, Gabe and Leah hid from each other.

It’s tricky to root for a book full of self-seeking characters making bad decisions --- especially when there’s an innocent baby involved. But maybe, with her “day job” as a practicing marriage therapist and family counselor, that’s the author’s point. Adopting a baby isn’t only about buying fancy strollers, picking out cribs and cherishing a new family member. It’s the necessity of deep trust between birth mother and adoptive parents, and between the adoptive parents themselves, without any funny business. And, of course, heeding any warning signs when they pop up --- no matter how minor or, in this case, major.