A Welcome Reunion

A Short Story

By: Lucinda Berry

Narrated by: Christine Williams, Erin Bennett

Length: 2 hrs and 10 mins

Publisher's summary

From the bestselling author of The Perfect Child comes a short thriller about a couple faced with the terrifying return of a girl they once called their own who threatens everything they hold dear.

Janie is the last person Hannah and Christopher Bauer want to see again.

But Janie’s moved back to Clarksville. She’s no longer the frail child Hannah and Christopher adopted over eleven years ago. The child who destroyed their lives. Now Janie is out of juvenile detention—a beautiful, confident young adult—and publicly promoting her new tell-all memoir.

At just eighteen, Janie has a violent and tragic story to share, brimming with grisly details. Details the public can’t get enough of…and that the Bauers can’t bear to relive. Janie has taken a new name and claims to have reformed her sociopathic ways. She’s ready to make amends. But when the Bauers refuse to meet with her, she takes matters into her own hands.

After the social worker formerly assigned to the case makes disturbing revelations about Janie’s calculated behavior, the Bauers brace for Janie’s next move, determined to protect their family—at any cost.

©2023 Heather Berry. (P)2023 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

Fantastic!

This is the first time I listened to a 2-hr short story. I like how it’s not dragged out with the fluff when trying to fill a full novel. On the other hand, I didn’t want it to end!

Bye Janie

Perfect ending! As always Lucinda killed it, no pun intended. Only thing they would make this epic, would be if Janie had a child no one knew about !

Wow! This was excellent!

I have to read the perfect child now....that was an excellent intro story to the bigger book. Well done!

A welcome reunion

I was interested until the end. This was a disturbing story and it did keep me wondering.

5 stars

A Welcome Reunion by Lucinda Berry is a well-crafted short story. It's been almost two years since I read The Perfect Child and while I liked it, I didn't remember everything. Lucinda reminds readers of what happened in a brief and casual way, without rehashing every detail, which is refreshing. I understand why so many reviewers are mad at her for the ending of The Perfect Child. However, it makes so much sense as to why this book needed to wait to come out; it makes for the perfect ending.

Christine Williams and Erin Bennett are both great narrators for this book.

shocking short story

wow, what a way to end a perfect child, this short story brought and end to the story in quite a shocking way. I'm glad I decided to pick this up.

Oh the twist!

I very much like this short story, and the twist that it took. Was very surprised.

I hated it (spoilers below)

Why would I give a story I HATED 5 stars, you might ask. Because Lucinda Berry gets under my skin.

A sequel to THE PERFECT CHILD, A WELCOME REUNION has a now adult Janie returning with a memoir focusing on how she turned her life around from a child sociopath.

The reason I hated the story is that it was written as I was supposed to feel sorry for her long suffering adoptive mom (whose name I’ve forgotten), but I didn’t. I was on Janie’s side because I hated the mom and her self-righteous self-pity so much that I rooted for Janie.

SPOILERS

The mom and June the social worker killed Janie. I’d have much rather had Janie kill the mom, the social worker didn’t bother me.

If you loved THE PERFECT CHILD you need this short story.

Thanks so much for the best ending I can now say I truly appreciate and enjoyed the book

Thanks so much for a good ending I truly appreciate and enjoyed this book. I can now give the perfect child 5 stars

Amazing addition!

Amazing addition to the Perfect child. I wish it had been a tad longer to find out what was going to happen with piper, and if Christopher ever got his head out of the sand.