Below, two early reviews for THE RED THREAD. Publisher's Weekly also ran a terrific one but I can't seem to copy it in here!


Kirkus 3/1/10

Hood, Ann
THE RED THREAD

A group of Americans plan to adopt daughters from China through an agency
founded by a bereaved mother, in Hood?s moving novel (The Knitting Circle, 2007, etc.).
Maya walked away from her husband Adam and her formerly happy life in
Hawaii after the accidental death of her infant daughter left her in emotional freefall.
(The exact circumstances surrounding the accident are not revealed until halfway through
the novel.) In part to assuage her anguish, Maya started The Red Thread Adoption
Agency, referring to a Chinese saying that a red thread connects people destined to be
together. Operating out of Providence, R.I., Maya conducts her latest orientation of a
group of couples embarking on the yearlong (or more) process of adopting abandoned
Chinese girl babies. Without exception, the wives initiate the adoptions. Theo is bored by
ovulation-driven sex with wife Sophie and, still a globetrotting beach bum at heart, views
children only as a threat to freedom. Emily, whose efforts to win over her teenage
stepdaughter Chloe have netted rejection, unwittingly abetted by her husband Michael,
seeks family equilibrium. Nell and Benjamin Walker-Adams, New England aristocrats
(he?s descended from John Adams) have given up on Nell?s mood-bending fertility
treatments, but she?s experiencing the most untrammeled baby-lust of her charmed life.
Brooke, married to ex?Major Leaguer Charlie, yearns to fill the void left by her sterility,
but Charlie thinks three?s a crowd, until suddenly their attitudes reverse. Susannah,
ambivalent about and vaguely shamed by the retarded daughter her husband Carter
adores, wants a ?normal? child. Interspersed throughout are italicized vignettes about
Chinese mothers forced by the quota on children and prejudice against girls to make
wrenching decisions.
The raw and riveting Chinese stories siphon narrative juice from the more
conventional American angst that dominates the novel. Still, the tale ends with a pleasing
sense that the red thread is more than a myth, especially in Maya?s case.


BOOKLIST

Advanced Review ? Uncorrected Proof
Issue: March 15, 2010


The Red Thread.
Hood, Ann (Author)
May 2010. 256 p. Norton, hardcover, $23.95. (9780393070200).
Hood?s latest engaging novel is a timely exploration of the adoption process, specifically the adoption of
Chinese girls by five couples in Providence, Rhode Island, brought together by Maya and her Red Thread
Adoption Agency. One by one, Hood introduces each couple: there?s a compulsive investment banker and
her consultant husband; a social do-gooder and her immature husband who still pines for an ex-girlfriend;
Maya?s friend Emily, who longs for her own daughter, tired of vying with her stepdaughter for her
husband?s affection; an ex-baseball player who fears losing his wife?s love and attention to the new
adoptee; and a mismatched couple with their own mentally challenged daughter whom the wife struggles
to love. Maya is an upbeat ringleader who believes every child is connected by a red thread to those fated
to play a part in his or her destiny. Hood intersperses the stories of these diverse couples with the sad
stories of five Chinese babies slated for adoption, resulting in part soap opera, part enlightening look at
contemporary adoptions, and an altogether entertaining read.

? Donna Seaman