Need to Breathe by Tara Staley Book Review

Summary from Goodreads: Claire Harper baffles doctors when she comes into the world 14 weeks early and covered with burns. Saddled with respiratory distress and misguided parents, Baby Claire needs more than incubators, oxygen tanks and Little Golden Books—she needs miracles.

She needs a very special woman named Millie Rose.

Millie died from childbirth in 1922, but she’s given a second chance at motherhood when she’s assigned to be a “spiritual foster parent” to Claire. Millie mentors her through NICU nightmares and toddler tirades. Residual illnesses, sassy peers—and a dark secret behind the burns on her skin. Over the years, Millie assuages Claire’s poor health, mentors a family steeped in dysfunction, helps Claire find real love and, in the end, guides her toward facing the abominable truth behind her birth. But when Millie pursues her own forbidden desire to somehow see the child she died delivering, she wagers not only Claire’s well-being and her years of hard work, but risks losing her own final peace in the hereafter.

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My thoughts: I loved this book! I had a hard time putting this book down when I had to. It was one of those books that brings you right into the story and you just need to know what is going to happen. This story was told my Millie Rose who is like a spirit, she is referred to as a pixie, a voice in Claire's mind. The whole book is told by Millie. This is the first book I have read like this and loved it. Millie tried to help Claire from birth, telling her to breathe and she will make it. Claire was born with burns all over her body. She is told they are birth marks. This book was not a happy go lucky kind of book. It was a total emotional roller coaster. There are many dark moments in Claire and Millie's lives that are told and we follow the journey through everything. The author came up with a fabulous story line and had me feeling so many emotions through the book, some where I wanted to cry and other parts where I want to yell at Claire.

I give Need to Breathe by Tara Staley a 5 star rating as this pulled at heart strings, made you happy and sad. The story held me throughout and stayed with me long after reading it. I have also recommended this book to many friends and family members.